Study In Magic
by Sherlock Emrys
Summary: Crowley takes a job as consulting detective and builds himself a new reputation amongst the humans as Sherlock Holmes. But now he's stuck with an angel as a flatmate and the end of the world as we know it is starting again. A statue's theft leads the demon detective into a much bigger problem- and the Gates of Hell are opening... PG, no slash.
1. Chapter 1

Good and Evil are not absolute concepts. They are two ways of looking at the same thing.

For instance. Making money is good. Making it by selling your family's silverware is bad. Making it by selling somebody else's silverware is good business practice. Unless you are the person whose silverware has just been stolen.

From the perspective of our heroes- or one of them, at any rate** [1] **–what is about to happen is bad.

To the person who is _making_ it happen, it is very good indeed. **[2]**

* * *

**[1] **The other one wouldn't really care either way. Which quite probably means he isn't a hero. Although, as he says, there really isn't any such thing.

**[2]** Actually, they would be quite offended to think of it as good. To them, it is very, very wickedly bad. Which is a good thing. Except that it isn't. **[3]**

**[3]** This is why you should never attempt to reason with evildoers.

* * *

The mansion house stood tall in the deep, black, night, a dark shadow against the dark sky. Works of Evil were being prepared against it in the dark, soulless storm.

It wasn't actually a soulless storm. It wasn't even storming at all. In fact, it wasn't really a very good night for Works of Evil. It was drizzling. But works of evil were damn well going to happen, thought the Evildoer, so the weather could do what it liked.

The drizzle became full on torrential downpour.

The Evildoer, who always capitalized Evil even in their head **[1]**, gave up on the weather and began to Work Evilly.

* * *

**[1] **A sure sign of an unhinged, or at least slightly loose, mind.

* * *

The next day, the owner of the mansion was dismayed and horrified to find that the hideously expensive (and hideously hideous) statue he'd bought to annoy the neighbours and convince the Press that he Knew About Art was missing. His security system insisted it was still there. The police found no evidence of any kind of break in. It was just… vanished. Almost like magic. Except that, of course, there was no such thing.

Two beings several hundred miles away would have disagreed. They were, after all, in a position of some knowledge on the subject, being respectively a demon (albeit a rather refined one, who hardly ever ate souls and didn't hold much with brimstone) and an Angel (if a rather kindly angel, who hardly ever smote people). Not the most likely of flatmates, true, but then neither were Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, as the mundane world knew Crowley and Aziraphale.

* * *

After the Apocalypse hadn't happened, Crowley and Aziraphale had gone their separate ways for a while. Crowley had holed up in his London flat, watching with trepidation for retaliation from Below regarding his, well, saving the world. **[1] ** He was so busy keeping himself alive, he had rather drifted out of touch with Aziraphale, and after he began his career as Sherlock Holmes he found himself rather too busy to catch up.

Establishing himself as a Consulting Detective was, Crowley considered, an extreme stroke of demonic genius. **[2] **He was busily catching those of humanity displaying traits prized by Hell's short-term thinkers, preventing them from killing people before he could tarnish their souls, and _at the same time_ was spreading a gentle soul-tainting wave of hatred and irritation amongst the entire Metropolitan Police Force.

* * *

**[1]** Not normally a cause for complaint, but as far as Demonic Actions go it was rather… well, Angelic.

**[2]** Although sadly, he knew that Down Below wouldn't approve. They were still at the mass-destruction phase.

* * *

He was thus quite surprised to find himself introduced to John Watson, MD, who he hadn't seen since the end of the universe.

* * *

Aziraphale had explained, over tea **[1]**, that he had gone out to Afghanistan as a means of evading possible Divine Wrath for his part in the universe not ending, as well as to spread Hope. Divine healings, that kind of thing. He'd reluctantly left his shop in the reassuringly capable hands of Anathema Device, who hadn't really been doing anything anyway, having never had much of a career plan beyond the planned Apocalypse, and left to become a Doctor.

Eventually, of course, people began to get suspicious. Some of his healings were just a little too advanced for human medicine and anyway, a rather nasty demon **[2]** had hit him in the leg with a spell which damaged his spirit, although not his vessel, leaving him with a limp which had no apparent physical cause.

* * *

**[1] **The angel had only become more British over the last 30 years.

**[2]** Not that there was really any other kind. Crowley was a rare exception, not that he would have admitted it. He was too… _civilized_ to be really nasty.

* * *

Invalided home, he had found young Anathema rather reluctant to give up his shop. In his thirty-year absence, she had turned his collection of antique books into an actual shop. Not that she'd dared sell any of his collection. Anathema was anything but stupid, and she knew better than to invoke the wrath of an Angel of the Lord, even a rather mild one. But nonetheless, he couldn't quite stomach the concept of owning an actual, commercialized, business and so was looking for temporary lodgings until he could find a new place to begin his collection again.

At the time, he had felt lodging with Crowley was an excellent idea. He would be able to search for a more permanent home, catch up with his old friend, and, should it prove necessary, be able to prevent Crowley from anything _too_ demonic.

A few months later, he would change his mind.

Crowley stood in the untidy living room, surveying his visitor blankly.

_|you shall cease to operate|_, it hissed mentally.

'Really now. Who sent you?'

_|i have no master|_

'I haven't time for this,' Crowley snapped. 'Who sent you?'

_|why are you not cowering|_ Crowley sensed the creature's puzzlement.

'We'll do a deal.' Crowley smirked. 'I'm rather known for those. You tell me who sent you, and I'll answer your question.'

The thing considered. _|they said you were human|_

'They were wrong. Who are they?'

_|the ones who you seek to destroy|_

'Narrowing it down to most of London's criminal populace.'

_|the servants of the great darkness|_

Crowley tapped his chin. 'Hold on a moment… the ones with the plot to destroy the government? Or the ones trying to summon a Kraken to eliminate the Navy?'

_|they will overthrow this puny mortal kingdom|_

'Ah, so the ones trying to overthrow the government.' Crowley stretched. 'Amazing how many Servants of the Great Darkness there are in London.'

The thing wavered uncertainly.

_|what are you|_

Crowley smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. 'Sherlock Holmes, to you.'

_|what|_

Crowley blinked slowly. When his eyes opened, his usual icey blue contacts had been vaporized. **[1] **Instead, his irises were a bright, golden yellow, with slit pupils which belonged to something that slithered. Crowley allowed the creature a moment to process it.

'I'm ssssure you can work it out for yourssself,' he added for good measure.

The being hovered for a moment.

'Didn't you have a messsssssage for me?' Crowley prompted. It would. They always did.

_|i was given something for you|_

'Well?'

_|a warning|_

'Hand it over.'

The warning was produced.

'On second thoughts, just… ah… put it down. Actually. Put it in the fridge. I'll work out what to do with it later.'

* * *

**[1]** It was a neat trick, but he didn't use it much. Contacts were more convenient than sunglasses, but also more difficult to remove for dramatic effect. He'd have to buy a new pair.

* * *

Aziraphale came home that afternoon, carrying the grocery bags. He ignored the demon with his feet on the sofa in the living room, and took the food through to the kitchen.

'Crowley.'

The demon opened one now-blue eye.

'Why is there a severed head in the fridge?'

The eye closed. 'Not guilty.'

_'Crowley.'_

'Seriously, not guilty.' The demon sat up. 'I find your lack of faith in me disturbing.'

'It would be more disturbing if I, an angel, _did_ have faith in a demon.'

Crowley shrugged. 'It was a warning.'

'A _warning_?' The angel seemed shocked. 'Who from?'

'The last lot of Servants of Darkness.'

'Again?'

'It's a popular name for Satanists.'

'They call this a _warning_?'

'I suppose it's a bit late for whoever they caught. But for a human detective, it would be a pretty effective deterrent.' Crowley accepted the mug Aziraphale handed him.

'We have to catch them.' The angel's blue eyes were earnest.

'Why? They'll never amount to anything much.'

'They killed somebody!'

Crowley took a sip of the tea, then spat it out. 'What is this, angel?'

'Tea.'

'No it isn't.'

'It should be.'

'You didn't use the teapot, did you?'

'It's conventional.'

'That's for making potions with. If I wasn't immortal, I'd be dead.'

'You should clean up.' Aziraphale put his mug, untasted, on the table gingerly.

'Busy.' Crowley sniffed at the tea in his mug.

'Busy with what? You just refused to track down a killer!'

'I don't need to bother. The Yard will manage it.'

'I thought your job was to help them.'

Crowley laughed.

'I know you pretend to be trying to destroy humanity, Crowley, but you aren't fooling me.'

'I'm a demon. I don't help humans.'

'No?' Aziraphale picked up the condemned mugs and carried them through to the kitchen. 'What are you doing posing as Sherlock Holmes, then?'

'Spreading hatred and despair throughout the police force. What did you think?'

'You certainly appear to be helping catch criminals.'

Crowley waved a hand. 'A by-product. In any case, I hardly wish innocent humans to die.'

Aziraphale's face appeared around the door, mouth open to respond.

'-before I can corrupt them,' Crowley hastily added.

Aziraphale gave him the kind of look which spoke volumes. Volumes of rare and antique books, knowing the angel.

'Are you going to hang around long?' Crowley enquired.

'Until I find a better place to stay.' Aziraphale gave him a severe look. 'Although, from what I've seen, you could benefit from me being around permanently.'

'I really don't think that's a good idea, angel,' Crowley began. A knock sounded on the door, interrupting him. Crowley's expression turned to one of mild consternation. 'Quick, get into the kitchen.'

'Why?'

'I haven't introduced you to my landlady yet.'

'You have a landlady?'

'Shut up.'

Aziraphale darted into the kitchen, still looking inquisitively at his friend.

'Come in, Mrs Hudson,' Crowley called genially.

'Hullo, dear,' Mrs Hudson breezed as she waltzed in, carrying a tray. 'The door wasn't locked, you know.'

'What a pity,' said Crowley insincerely. He didn't really feel locks were necessary for a flat in which resided a demon of the darkest pits of Hell (even if he hadn't been back there in ages) and, temporarily, an angel of the Lord.

'I just came to bring up some tea,' Mrs Hudson said kindly. She put down the tray on the table, carelessly dislodging a piece of parchment with a sigil inscribed on it. Crowley lunged to catch the scroll before it hit the ground and triggered the incendiary charm he'd been sent by a… acquaintance. Of the violent sort. 'Of course, I wouldn't normally, dear, I am your landlady not your housekeeper, but I felt that your guest might appreciate some tea.'

Aziraphale poked his head around the kitchen door. 'Very kind.'

'Oh, you're welcome deary,' Mrs Hudson smiled warmly as Crowley facepalmed. 'I know Sherlock here can be a little… careless with food and so on. Oh, no.' She spotted the mugs Aziraphale had put on the side in the kitchen. 'I see you already found out about the teapot. Sherlock could really use somebody else about the place, couldn't you?'

Crowley, his face buried in his hands, nodded slightly.

'What's your name, young man?'

'Er… John. John Watson.'

'A pleasure to meet you, Mr Watson.'

'It's Doctor, actually,' Aziraphale mentioned as he came into the room and began to pour the tea. 'How did you, ah…'

'I saw your coat hanging on the wall,' Mrs Hudson dimpled. 'Sherlock here rather rubs off on one.'

Crowley mumbled something as he moved his head from side to side, still buried in his hands.

'Will you be staying, dear?' Mrs Hudson cheerfully enquired, arranging a plate of biscuits on top of a Book Of Ancient Darkness.

'If Mr… Holmes' contract doesn't allow-' Aziraphale began.

'Oh, no, dear, it's perfectly fine. He has a second bedroom anyway. If you'll be needing it.'

Crowley choked on the tea he'd been sipping. Aziraphale's eyes widened. 'Yes, I think I'll take the second bedroom. Thank you.'

Mrs Hudson smiled indulgently and Crowley nearly choked again. Nevermind immortality, the shock was enough to make him _want_ to die, or at least sink back to Hell.

'I'll only be staying for a while, until I can find another place,' Aziraphale said in a tone of almost-discomfort.

Mrs Hudson's smile widened. 'You're welcome to stay as long as you like, my dear. It's lovely to see Sherlock finding friends.'

'Of course,' Crowley muttered.

His phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. 'Excuse me a minute.' He went into the kitchen and answered it.

'Holmes.'

The voice sounding through the speakers was nothing more or less than human. Lestrade was his principle contact at the Yard and Crowley felt some satisfaction at knowing he had suffused the man with enough irritation to put him on Hell's shortlist unless that angel managed to get there first.

'We have a case for you. Your kind of thing.'

'Well?'

'Theft.'

'Boring.' Crowley made to hang up. Thefts weren't his things.

'No evidence. No traces of entry. It's just gone. As if by magic.' Lestrade spoke quickly, knowing it would hook him.

Crowley froze. 'Nothing?'

'Nope. This statue- the famous one, the Chinese Goddess- it just... vanished.'

Crowley tilted his head. 'The Chinese Goddess? Jade, statue of Amaterasu, Japanese sun figure? Sold recently for over half a million?'

'That's right.'

'I'll take it.'

Crowley hung up without further ado. The Chinese Goddess was something he'd had his eye on since it had come up for auction. It appeared to be harbouring some considerable powers and he wanted it in safe hands. Its "magical" theft sounded like his kind of problem.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Here we go. Wikipedia, I love you :) You can look up Abe no Seimei if you like, although I've...ah... embroidered things a little. But it's based on reality. Or legends, at any rate.**

** I'm enjoying this far too much.**

* * *

Chapter II

'Mrs Hudson, I have a case. You can go,' Crowley announced as he swept back in.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. 'You don't have to be so rude, you know.'

Crowley simply gave him a deep, scornful glare. **[1]**

Mrs Hudson fussed as she gathered up the cups. 'Of course, Sherlock dear, I know how busy you are.' She gave a motherly smile to Aziraphale. 'It was lovely to meet you, Doctor Watson.'

'Oh, call me John, please.'

Crowley made a sound like a cat being sick, and looked innocent when the angel looked his way.

'Well, I'll be downstairs if you need me. Goodbye.' The woman swept out of the flat, adroitly balancing the tray of tea things. As the door closed, Aziraphale began to speak. Crowley held up a hand, listening. About ten seconds later, they heard footsteps receding.

'What a charming woman,' Aziraphale remarked from his armchair.

'You would say that, wouldn't you,' Crowley growled.

* * *

**[1] **Although he _was_ thankful that the angel had refrained from addressing him as 'dear boy'.

* * *

'Well, now, isn't this nice?' Aziraphale remarked. Crowley flopped back onto the sofa and glared at him.

'Why are you really here?'

'I told you. I thought it was time we caught up with each other, and I do need a place to stay.'

Crowley narrowed his eyes suspiciously. The angel looked placid, bland, and somehow _normal_. He prided himself on being as abnormal as possible, mainly to irritate people, and Aziraphale in particular.

'Fine. So you're staying here.' The demon stretched. 'You aren't going to try and stop me, are you?'

'Stop you?' The angel looked genuinely surprised. 'Oh, no, my dear boy. You're doing _such_ good work here.'

Crowley choked on air, scowled viciously, and glared at Aziraphale. 'Don't say things like that.'

'Oh, but it's true. You're making the world a better place,' Aziraphale said earnestly. 'I thought I might help you for a bit.'

'Are you out of your feathery little mind?' Crowley demanded. 'I'm a demon. You're an angel. We don't _work together_.'

'I shall draw your attention to the fact that we are, in fact, able to have this conversation,' Aziraphale said mildly. 'We did save the world.'

'The apocalypse was an exception,' Crowley said angrily. 'And it didn't really have anything to do with me.'

Aziraphale opened his mouth to object and Crowley carried on hastily.

'I'm pretty sure that working together on anything is against the rules.'

That ought to do the trick. Aziraphale was very keen on rules.

'Not really. After all, I would be preventing you from your unfortunate habit of irritating mortals,' Aziraphale pointed out. 'And you would be preventing me from helping them.'

Damn. Crowley considered this for a few moments. 'That is what normally happens,' he conceded.

'Then it's agreed,' Aziraphale said cheerfully. 'I shall move in here, my dear boy, and we can work together from now on.'

Crowley contemplated a life with an angel permanently on his shoulder. It didn't look great.

'So what were you saying about a case?' Aziraphale asked, settling back into his armchair. Crowley took a moment to glare at his old friend. Aziraphale never used to be this efficient.

'Thirty years changes people,' Aziraphale said reasonably.

'Out of my mind,' Crowley growled. **[1]**

'You should learn your own tricks,' Aziraphale said complacently. 'I read about you a little, even in Afghanistan. I was rather sure it _was_ you, and when I saw the photograph I was certain. Nothing human has those cheekbones.'

'You _have_ changed,' Crowley said in annoyance. 'You started thinking.'

'That's not nice, Crowley,' Aziraphale said placidly. Crowley snorted in derision and they sat for a moment in the kind of companionably silence born of six thousand years of companionship. And occasional violent rage. **[2]**

* * *

**[1] **That was his trick for frightening the humans. They weren't to know it was simply telepathy- they thought it was some ingenious psychoanalysis.

**[2]** They say that conflict forges friendships. It is unlikely that they mean conflict with each other, but nonetheless thousands of millennia of imaginative murder efforts cement a bond of sorts.

* * *

'It was the war,' Aziraphale said abruptly, breaking the silence. 'We've seen so much of it, both of us-'

'-from opposite ends of the battlefield usually-'

'-but the humans are really outdoing themselves lately.'

'I didn't think that it was possible.' Crowley sat back in pleasure. 'We've obviously been doing our jobs right- oh, don't glare like that, you know the we I mean.'

'You went to Japan in the forties, didn't you?' Aziraphale asked.

'Hiroshima?' Crowley actually shuddered. 'Yes.'

'Makes your lot look like pre-school teachers,' Aziraphale said softly.

'What's it like in the East, then?'

'Getting there.' Aziraphale's brown eyes were haunted. 'I did what I could. I mean, even I have limits, you know. But I tried. All those soldiers, with no real idea what they're fighting for. Freedom, liberation… all they ever win is death.'

'Why did you join the army, then?' Crowley asked curiously. 'If you hate it so much.'

'Oh, I wasn't talking about the Western soldiers,' Aziraphale answered. 'Those poor idiots. Some of them really think they're fighting for us, well, a twisted version of us. Sometimes I want…' his voice trailed off.

'Makes you wonder why we bothered stopping the Apocalypse,' Crowley agreed. 'Humans are doing such a good job of making Hell for themselves, I should retire.'

'But that's the point!' Aziraphale cried. 'They make hell for themselves, but they also make a little bit of heaven, too. Can't you see that?'

Crowley looked at him for a moment, and wondered if he needed to waste a second pair of contact lenses to make his point.

'I know, I know,' the angel sighed. 'But I really think you're not as bad as you seem to think.'

'Stop it.'

'Stop what?'

'Let's make a deal. I won't tempt you or be obviously diabolical in your presence, and you can stop trying to make me repent and being so obviously _nice_ around me.'

'You know that you'd never stick to that deal.'

'_I'm_ not supposed to stick to deals.'

Aziraphale gave him a very unimpressed look.

'We have a case,' Crowley said, changing the subject. 'Have you ever heard of a statue called the Chinese Goddess?'

'No.'

Crowley rolled his eyes. 'Of course not. It's not a book.'

'Crowley, I have only just returned from the middle east. I had some priorities which, startlingly, did _not_ revolve around art.'

Crowley sat up. 'This statue isn't just art. Have you ever heard of a sorcerer named Abe no Seimei?'

'The name is familiar… who was he?'

'Magician. Do you know the principles of _onmyōdō_?'

Aziraphale's frown told him he had not.

'Did you ever visit Japan around, oh, 10th century?'

'I was in Europe at the time, as I recall,' Aziraphale replied.

'Well, _onmyōdō _is a sort of… call it magic.'

'Witchcraft?'

'Not really. But if it helps,' Crowley said impatiently. 'Most of it was rubbish. But some of it worked. This sorcerer, Abe no Seimei, was a court magician. He was in charge of keeping the place free of evil spirits and such.'

'I take it that it didn't work, since you seem to know about it,' Aziraphale replied acerbically. Crowley just grinned.

'I may have given him a few pointers.'

Aziraphale's frown deepened. 'Now I remember where I've heard that name. Seimei Doman, the Seal of Seimei, is their name for the pentagram. You gave him black magic?'

Crowley waved a hand. 'Only a little. He wasn't really human anyway. His mother was a kitsune.'

'A fox spirit? I find that unlikely.'

'Well, maybe not. She's a lovely demon, although perhaps lovely's not the right word. Took a holiday up here in 920.'

'Get to the point, Crowley,' Aziraphale said wearily.

'He wasn't much cop at exorcisms and warding, but he was very good at finding things.'

'That's not much of a power.'

'Very useful on occasion. But I don't just mean things like where you put down your keys last. He could find _anything_.'

'Well?'

'Including, say, a gateway to Hell.'

'_Oh_.'

'Precisely,' Crowley agreed.

'So I take it that this statue…'

'Amaterasu, Sun Goddess. And carved into the base, hidden under a rather elaborate sequence of catches, is the seal which will cause the Gates of Hell to open.'

There was a moment's silence.

'I think we'd better find the statue,' Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley shrugged. 'I shouldn't worry too much. That on its own won't do too much. Hell's Gates are pretty well locked. They'd need three, four other seals to open everything. And it's probably not even been taken by someone who wants to open the Gates of Hell.'

'True,' Aziraphale agreed. 'Mortals are like magpies. How much was it worth?'

'Upside of half a million.'

'Well, I'm sure it's nothing much to worry about. But I for one didn't really enjoy the end of the world last time, either.'

'You and me both, angel.'

* * *

**No offence was intended to anybody offended by my mentioning a) the Shinto religion b) Islam [slightly] or c) war. Or if you were offended by anything else, I assure you it wasn't my intention. **

**Also. I think I speak for everyone when I say that nothing natural has cheekbones like Benedict Cumberbatch. Really.**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:  Here we go again! I should really be updating Deadly Requiem, but here we are instead. This is far too much fun. This is my first EVER Good Omen's fic, and the characterization has drifted slightly. This particular chapter, however, focusses on OCs, so that's OK. Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter iii**

The Coven of Ancient Darkness was meeting on a windswept moor. They came in dribs and drabs, making their way from nearby towns and villages to this central meeting point, near an ancient magical stone.

They hadn't used to meet here. Previously, once a week they had met up at each others houses and drunk tea and nibbled biscuits, but it had been decided- well, a few of the younger members had decided- that the proper place for worship of Ancient Darkness was on a windswept moor, near a Stone of Power, at midnight. It was felt that a cosy living room with floral wallpaper just didn't have the atmosphere.

The midnight was black and thick with rain. For once, the weather appeared to have a sense of occasion.

Horologia Skate pushed her black hair off of her forehead. **[1] **It was rather soaked with rain. But at least there was some proper atmosphere now. She just hadn't felt that her soul was being properly steeped in Dark Magic in the lounge of a rather tasteless old woman in late middle age, eating custard creams.

* * *

**[1]** It wasn't naturally black. But dirty blond hair did not, she felt, become a witch.

* * *

Horologia Skate was one of the New Witches. They had capitalized themselves in an attempt to become different from the Old Witches, who didn't call themselves a _coven_, even, they just sort of turned up. And they didn't do _magic_. At least, not proper magic, with blood and fire and spells forged in the dawn of time and amulets of purest, darkest silver, ten ninety-nine from the local market trader and genuinely cursed by a genuine demon, guaranteed. No, the Old Witches hardly ever did any real magic. They just messed with people's heads a lot, and when they _did_ do spells they just looked at something and it happened. No chanting, even. Horologia felt that any spell without chanting in it wasn't a proper spell.

Horologia gathered her flapping black cloak **[1]**, which was trying to trip her up, and staggered on through the horizontal rain.

* * *

**[1]** Made from an old blanket. But it had authentic sigils of demonic power in it, so it didn't much matter. **[2]**

**[2] **Amazingly, she was right there. Magic is all about minds, and if you believe it's a magic cloak embroidered with sigils of demonic power, then it is. Never mind if it used to line a dog basket.

* * *

When she reached the Stone of Power, Horologia stopped. She opened her mouth to cry out a greeting to her brothers and sisters in magic, then stopped because the wind had flapped her hair into her mouth and she spent the next few minutes scraping it off her face. Then she opened her mouth again and called out, her voice melding with the sound of the wind and the rain.

'Greetings, my sisters! Greetings, my brothers! How do you go, this night of darkness?'

Horologia was quite pleased with the greeting. She'd thought it up herself and she felt it was quite acceptably evil and Darkly Magyk.

'Er, we're quite cold and wet right now, Jane,' came back the eldritch voice of the dark.

Horologia scowled and stamped forwards. 'I am Horologia, sister of the Dark… sibling-hood. I am not called Jane.'

'Sorry, Ja- Horologia,' replied the voice ashamedly. Horologia moved forwards in the dark night, heading towards its sound.

'I take it that you are my Brother in Darkness, Ky- er, Macrobiotus Lunge,' said Horologia determinedly. She wasn't about to waste a perfectly good Dark Greeting, even if it wasn't being appreciated.

Kyle, now known as Macrobiotus **[1]**, appeared out of the darkness, lit with an eldritch light.

'And I see that you have finally mastered the Spell of Lux Fabricat **[2]**,' Horologia sniffed grudgingly.

* * *

**[1] **Horologia had told him that the best way to come up with a Dark Name of Power was to find a suitably long word and add –us to the end. Unfortunately, the first long word he'd seen was on his mother's carton of macrobiotic yoghurt.

**[2]** All spells, she knew, had to have Latin in them somewhere. It made it sound better.

* * *

Macrobiotus sheepishly re-aimed the flashlight that had been trained on his face, pointing it at the ground. Horologia shook her head. 'Why do I bother?'

Macrobiotus had been wondering the same thing himself. But he kept quiet.

'We,' Horologia said coldly, 'are Witches.'

Macrobiotus opened his mouth.

'And Warlocks.'

He closed it.

'We hold in our hands the power that shaped this universe, the force that drives Creation. We are mistresses-'

Mouth open.

'-_and_ _masters-'_

Mouth closed.

'-of the very Secret of Being. We are the go- _deities_- of our new world. You understand? A new world is coming and we, we are to be its rulers! Creators! We have the, the, the _spirit_ of the Great and Ancient Darkness within ourselves, we own it, we shape it! We are a new Order, a new Existence, a new World within ourselves, and soon- soon, we shall be queens _and kings Macrobiotus_ of the entirety of our Universe!'

Horologia lowered her voice from full-on Rant to dismayed Mutter.

'We have no need of flashlights. Why rely on Human ingenuity and pale, insignificant inventions when we, with a wave of our hands, can flood the world with light or plunge it into Darkness?'

Macrobiotus felt that the flashlight was easier, himself. He hadn't got the hang of Lux Fabricat yet, and whatever Horologia said it didn't really seem worth the effort of calling upon the Drive of the Creation's Darkness or whatever when the torches were on half-price at the local pound store.

But he didn't say anything. The Kyle in him was frankly, terrified of Horologia's frantic devotion to the Dark. And the Macrobiotus that he was _sure_ existed in there somewhere because Horologia said so and she was always right, well, he agreed with every word of it. Of course he did. He wouldn't be here otherwise.

'Horologia. Is that you?' came a new voice.

Horologia raised an eyebrow and said, frostily, 'I think, Entomologia Doer, you _meant_ "Hark! Dost thou go before me, Sister Horologia?"'

'Yeah. That's what I said,' Entomologia said hurriedly.

Horologia noted with disgust that Entomologia, formerly Gladys, was also carrying a flashlight. And what appeared to be a thermos flask of tea.

'Sister of Dark, Horologia, I greet thee. Well met under darkling moon, siblings!' came another voice from the night.

Entomologia and Macrobiotus groaned slightly. Horologia drew herself up with a joyful grin.

'Well met indeed, brother Unaneledus. I greet thee in the name of the Ancient Dark, for which we have our meeting.'

Entomologia muttered, 'Creep.'

An eldritch glow ignited at a little distance. A globe of blue-black fire, tinged with some colours that human eyes weren't equipped to see and which pulled at the soul with an unspeakable urge to run, to hide, to fill the world with light to counter the darkness of that ball of fire, floated above the ground. It was a little bigger than a basketball and beside it walked a figure dressed in a long, black coat. It glinted. **[1]**

Unaneledus Wen arrived.

* * *

**[1] **Black shouldn't gleam, glisten or glint. This coat did. Macrobiotus and Entomologia tried not to think about it. Horologia gazed, keenly, at this ominous sign.

* * *

'Well met, siblings,' Horologia said with a tinge of pride. 'Greetings, Unaneledus Wen. Greetings, Entomologia Doer. Greetings… Macrobiotus Lunge.'

'Where,' Unaneledus asked, 'are our Dark Siblings Diacritic, Prebenda and… Maya?'

Macrobiotus stepped forwards. 'Diacritic couldn't make it, he had to catch up on some work. Er.' He was conscious of some glares coming his way. Entomologia poked him. 'Oh, er, Dark Siblings. He, er, sends his… deepest apologies, for the, er, Spirit of the Universal Dark is, er, not… um, able to aid him in his distress?'

Entomologia rolled her eyes. Horologia scowled but accepted it.

'And the others?' she asked suspiciously.

'Er, Dennis… I mean, Brother Diacritic Angle and Sister Prebenda Mingle went to, ah, complete a Dark Ritual.'

'A Dark Ritual?' asked Unaneledus with a hint of pique. 'Why were we not informed?'

'It, er, is a most secret and profane ritual,' Entomologia improvised as Macrobiotus faltered. 'They did not wish to jeopardise it by alerting the Forces of the Light and thus kept it secret until the last minute.'

'Very well,' said Horologia finally. 'We shall continue without them.'

Entomologia sighed in relief. She wasn't about to be the one to tell their leader that Dennis and Agnes- sorry, Diacritic and Prebenda- had gone to the cinema to see a rom-com.

'How goes the plan, siblings?' Unaneledus asked with a hint of hiss.

Horologia took a final, happy, look at the Eldritch Fireball. 'I have taken the first step, siblings.' She rummaged in the bag by her side and took out a heavy, beautiful, jade statue. It was only about the size of her forearm, and it showed a beautiful woman in a traditional kimono standing upon a lotus leaf. 'Behold, Amaterasu, Goddess of the Light.' All the Witches/Warlocks shuddered on demand. 'And in her heart lies the key, friends. The first Seal of Hell is in my hands.' She laughed and Unaneledus joined in heartily. Entomologia and Macrobiotus hesitantly joined in.

'I took it,' continued Horologia in elation, 'from the mansion of the Enemy. It was guarded by mortal means and the fools knew not what they held. I slipped in, cloaked in magic, and I took what is ours by right.' She brandished the statue. It glistened wetly in the rain, lit by the Eldritch Fireball. 'And here it is, siblings of the Dark. The key to Hell.'

* * *

'So what exactly happened with these Seals?' Aziraphale asked Crowley as they made their way out of the flat.

Crowley shrugged. 'Abe no Seimei found the keys to the gates of Hell. He put them into five objects, each representing an element, and then he kept hold of them.'

'But why did he try and open Hell to begin with?'

'Why did humanity split the atom?'

'You know, I've often wondered that myself.'

'I was being rhetorical, angel. It's the same reason that humans do anything. Because they can.' Crowley blinked and the Bentley parked on the curb in blatant defiance of traffic laws unlocked itself. 'Get in.'

Crowley slid into the driver's seat and Aziraphale buckled himself into the passenger seat.

Crowley didn't bother with a seat belt. He'd never felt them necessary.

'So there are four keys?'

'Five.'

'Five?' The angel looked a little bewildered. 'There are only four elements.'

Crowley snorted. 'How are you so unaware of other belief systems?'

The Angel of the Lord gave him a stare of mild reprimand.

'Nevermind.' Crowley put the Bentley in gear and began to do 90mph in the centre of London. 'In Buddhist philosophy, the Shinto religion _and_ Taoism there are the same elemental groups. Chi, Sui, Fu, Ka and Ku.'

'Bless you.'

Crowley flinched. 'Don't.'

'Oh, sorry.' The angel shook his head. 'I forgot.'

'You would,' the demon grumbled. 'Anyway. Each of those elements represents an aspect of the universe. The Chinese Goddess- which isn't Chinese, but some stupid colonial human couldn't tell the difference- is the First Seal of Hell. It represents Chi, Earth. Consistency. Stubbornness. Unchangingness. Constancy. Tradition.'

'Where is the seal?'

'Hidden in the base.' Crowley turned a corner at dangerous speed and Aziraphale Willed two unfortunate humans out of the Bentley's illegal path. 'It unhinges. There's a Seal carved into the statue. I don't know exactly how it needs to be broken, but trust me, we'll know when it does.'

'You don't know how it needs to be broken?' Aziraphale's blue eyes looked a little annoyed. 'My dear boy, surely there isn't any need to worry then? If you don't know, who will?'

Crowley snorted. 'Angel, flattering as it is, your faith in me is misplaced. This is a magician's job, not a demon's. I was never exactly keen on the whole plan.'

'So where are we heading?' Aziraphale had the temerity to ask. Normally, the only thing he was concerned about when being driven by the speed demon was stopping.

Crowley accelerated and Aziraphale squeaked and grabbed the handle above the door. 'Crime scene. Rosebay Mansions. About, oh, fifty miles out of London.'

'_Rosebay_?'

'I know, disgustingly angelic.'

'I was thinking disgustingly demonic. Only your side would create something so sickeningly sweet.'

'Funny, I was thinking the same thing.' Crowley had nearly left London by now. This should not have been even slightly possible. However, at the speeds he was travelling, the roads knew better than to be going anywhere except straight to his destination.

'How long?'

Crowley glanced at his watch. Aziraphale turned a little green and hung on tighter.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: And another chapter. I quite like this one :)**

* * *

**Chapter IV**

The night was thick, wet and wild. Rosebay Mansions stood alone by the edge of the narrow lane, rising from a sea of emerald lawn like a ship in a storm. The only visible lights were in the windows of the old, red brick house. The nearest village was only a mile away, thrice that along the serpentine lanes cut down into the hills.

The owner had refused to stay, claiming that he "didn't want to contaminate the crime scene". Despite assurances from the local police and the Scotland Yard representatives that that wouldn't be a problem, and frankly there wasn't a crime scene to contaminate, he wouldn't be swayed. The constable left in residence, a young man named Steven Bracegirdle, recalled the man's rather clammy skin and frightened eyes, and decided that the owner of this place was more concerned with ensuring he preserved his media image of courage and strength whilst, more importantly, being quite a large distance away from any potential criminals than any recovery of his stolen property, which he hadn't ever really liked and had mainly got to make himself look intelligent.

Steven Bracegirdle was currently sat at the kitchen table, where he'd set up to stay the night. He had a camp bed in the corner by the huge stove and had laid his official badge and truncheon **[1] **carefully upon the huge pinewood table. Currently, he was nervously watching a large copper kettle sitting upon the hob of the Aga. He didn't have an Aga at home, and he was rather tentative about using it, in case he accidentally set fire to the house (which was owned by someone who spent more on clothes per week than he earned in a year). He could have commandeered a bedroom in the name of Justice, but the ingrained peasant mentality that had been carefully bred into his ancestors by the former owners of this mansion house informed him that it was Wrong to Impose.

* * *

**[1] **Almost all police forces nationwide have given up the use of truncheons nowadays. This tells you something about the size of the village Rosebay Mansions was affiliated to **[2]**.

**[2]** It was far too spread out across the countryside for Rosebay Mansions to be "in" it, as such.

* * *

He saw that the kettle was emitting steam and he nervously scurried over to remove it, pouring it out into a mug with a teabag in it.

He nearly burnt his entire front when he heard a car pull up and the kitchen, formerly lit by the warm glow of the ceiling lamp, was briefly illuminated by a bar of bright light from the headlights.

He'd been warned about this, he thought as he scuttled back to the table to put down his mug and soothe his scalded hand. His boss, the local DI and technically the SOCO here, had taken him to one side.

"Listen, lad," he'd said. "Those idiots from Scotland Yard have given up on this and they're sending some bloke from London down. Sherlock Holmes, they call him. He's apparently some kind of genius, but mostly what he is is a pain in the posterior, so you be careful. If he turns up, you do your duty, understand? Do the village of Half-in-the-Valley proud!"

His boss hadn't ever elaborated on what his duty was, but Bracegirdle was prepared to do it anyway.

Bracegirdle dumped his tea on the table, spilling a little, and picked up his official badge, fumbling slightly with it as he clipped it onto his uniform, and grabbed his truncheon. After all, you never knew. This was why he was in residence, so that he could discourage the audacious thief who had taken a priceless piece of art without notifying any members of the household or leaving any trace behind from trying again, on pain of being hit with a small piece of wood that he wasn't really allowed to hit people with in case they sued him.

The weight of his truncheon was suddenly a little less reassuring.

He hurried to the front door. It took a while. He had to make his way out of the huge kitchen and down a stone-flagged passage, around the servant's corridors and down to the massively oversized wood-panelled hall, which he entered through a cunningly concealed door created to allow butlers to do their trick of materializing out of nowhere, which takes the entire first year of Butler School to learn because it takes such concentration.

The huge, oak-panelled front door was almost bending with the force of the knocking from outside.

Bracegirdle quickly unbolted the huge door. **[1]** Before he'd even got it fully open, he was shoved aside by the man who entered.

'Who's in charge here?' he snapped. Bracegirdle looked him up and down. Dark hair, fairly curly, pale skin- far too pale to be healthy- well built, slender, strong but not muscled, skinny, really tall, cheekbones that could cut paper.

'Er, I am. Sir. Constable Bracegirdle of the local police department. Who are you?'

The man just gave Bracegirdle a contemptuous look and swept past him.

* * *

**[1]** It wasn't that quick. He'd practiced several times, but he couldn't get it down to below thirty seconds, what with the huge oak bar which he struggled to lift, the three deadbolts, main lock, huge latchkey and the weight of the door itself, which was about the size of a car. The medieval builders had been taking no chances.

* * *

'H-hey, you can't-' Bracegirdle called after him. The man turned and gave him the most withering glare Bracegirdle had ever been subjected to, surpassing even the Constable's mother. It was a glare which spoke volumes. It said, in big, black type with spiky letters, that the glaree was currently ranking somewhere below the amoeba on the floor in the estimation of the glarer, and any further cause for glaring would be punished. Nastily.

'I'm very sorry, young man,' said another voice behind Bracegirdle. It was a warm and soothing voice, which practically emanated the general air, spirit and feeling of tea. British, without a doubt. Probably wore something knitted.

Bracegirdle turned around. He realised with a faint sting of pride that he was completely right. The man still standing in the doorway was shorter than his companion, stolidly built, blonde, with a vaguely worn and worried face that looked a little older than it should **[1]** and a cable-knit jumper.

'Who are you?' Bracegirdle asked in trepidation. The man smiled.

'We're from Scotland Yard. Can we come in?'

* * *

**[1] **As a matter of fact, it was a great deal _younger_ than it should have been. Six thousand years of righteous smiting really takes it out of you.

* * *

Bracegirdle led the man- Doctor Watson- through to the warm and comforting kitchen. The weather outside beat against the ancient walls like a besieging army but in here, they were safe. The rain drummed against the leaded panes like the boots of a marching infantry, and thunder boomed like shellfire.

'Tea?' he asked lamely as another crash of thunder shook the house and lightning turned the sky white.

'Please,' answered the mysterious guest. Another crash sounded from upstairs, one which wasn't due to thunder. Bracegirdle glanced upwards fearfully.

'Is he-'

'Don't worry. He won't break anything vital,' the man's friend answered, not entirely reassuringly.

Bracegirdle gulped and sipped his tea.

* * *

Crowley was not _angry_, per se. Official sin or not, it was one of the few he didn't care to indulge in more than once a month or whenever Aziraphale did something stupid. He felt that it was unbecoming for the demon who Felled humanity (something he didn't feel he was given enough credit for) to be infuriated by some little human plot. A Satanist plot as well, to his shame. He'd be expected to be _pleased_ when he did find those idiots. And Down Below would probably have a go at him again, although they'd been in contact with him rather less after That Day. He had been ignored for over a year, and barring a scare caused by one of his tapes becoming twisted and leaving Freddie Mercury sounding like a drunken duck **[1]**, he hadn't thought about it except to be occasionally grateful.

Nonetheless. Crowley was something approaching angry.

Those imbecilic human policemen had been tramping all over the place. Their morphic signatures had muddied the aether around the crime scene and Crowley was struggling to find the tang of magic in amongst the muck and dross of human emotions.

His tongue flicked out, tasting the air. He moved forwards purposefully.

* * *

**[1]** The tape had been mangled by age and overplaying, and halfway through Bohemian Rhapsody Crowley had been left listening to the Aquatic Duck Choir with accompaniment on the Kazoo and Sitar. He had thrown the tape out of the window instantly, knowing that another one would materialize in his glove compartment inside a week.

* * *

The statue's plinth was empty. The glass around it was intact and the lock untouched.

Crowley moved a little closer, fake-blue eyes narrowed. Here, if anywhere, he should be able to find the stench of magic permeating the next plane. He leant closer to the glass, scrutinising it with demon's eyes. His forked tongue flicked again.

Here. The oily blue-black reek of their magic. It was a unique trace and once he met the sorcerer who had that tainted power, he would know them in an instant.

Magic, Crowley considered, was like mould. It was generally harmless and a little of it was not really much of a problem unless you really loathed such things, but the more it was left, the greater the problem became. Magic _spread_, absorbed the essence of its use and the soul of its owner, became a part of them and controlled them, set into the soul like rot, permeating it all the way through. Once you'd gone far enough to change its colour, made it a signature residue, then you'd gone too far and you could never purge it from your beings essence.

Which meant that sorcerers were the world's worst criminals. Magic fingerprints could be sensed from a few meters away, if you had the capability. And Crowley did. **[1]** This magic would be easy to recognize once he traced the mages in question.

The question being, of course, how to trace them.

* * *

**[1]** All ethereal beings had several extra senses. Many of them were useless on a day-to-day basis, and since if they were all activated on the mortal plane they would blow the beings mind with sheer _life_ most of the divine agencies kept themselves restricted to the human five. Crowley considered six or seven acceptable.

* * *

Aziraphale was startled to see Crowley breezing into the kitchen like he owned the place.

'We're done here. Let's go,' the demon said brusquely.

Aziraphale stood up.

Bracegirdle stood up too. He held out a clipboard in a quivering hand. 'Uh, sirs, you need to sign this form to say… um…'

He was once again on the receiving end of a Glare.

'I'm sure there's no need for that, young man,' Aziraphale said kindly. 'Why don't you just ask DI Lestrade to fill it out in the morning?'

Aziraphale was glaring at Crowley over Bracegirdle's shoulder. The angel's glare was nowhere near as threatening and most certainly did not promise fiery agony, but it did have a vague air of _disappointment_ that was somehow worse than Crowley's disdain could ever be. Even Crowley wilted slightly under it, and he'd had centuries to become immune.

Bracegirdle backed down gratefully, and Crowley reluctantly turned his own glare down a few notches, from Hellfire to Mildly Annoyed.

'Goodbye, young man,' Aziraphale said pleasantly, and then they were gone.

Bracegirdle sat at the kitchen table for a few moments, then decided to requisition some brandy from the drinks cabinet in the name of Justice. A few moments later, Justice decided that it needed the entire bottle. **[1] **

* * *

**[1] **Bracegirdle's Sergeant, a corpulent red-faced man with more than a slight predisposition to serving Justice through alcohol himself, was on the verge of bawling him out for this as only a Sergeant can when he discovered him the next day sleeping peaceably on the table, until he discovered that Sherlock Holmes had visited the previous night. Upon receipt of this information, the Sergeant had merely shaken his head in sympathy and left the constable to his slumber.

* * *

Crowley and Aziraphale were driving back to London in comfortable silence, idly listening to the overture to Bizet's Carmen, ft Freddie Mercury, when suddenly Crowley swore and jammed on the brakes. The Bentley spun, leaving a perfect half-circle of rubber on the country road, and settled facing the other way. Aziraphale was thrown into the window with enough force to give a human a concussion, but he didn't notice because he was swearing too. This was not something that the angel did often, and for that matter, spinning the Bentley was not something Crowley did often, for the sake of the tires.

'Thiss iss bad,' Crowley hissed when his mind had untangled itself.

'Really? I hadn't noticed,' Aziraphale snapped with greater sarcasm than really necessary.

Crowley recovered himself enough to miracle the Bentley into good repair again. 'I assume that you sensed that too.'

'Less than you, by the looks of things,' Aziraphale remarked.

The demon was paler than usual as he carefully performed a three-point turn in a lane which hadn't been wide enough before. The pull-over space was quite surprised to find itself about half a mile from where it usually resided. 'I've got a stronger connection to the diabolical side of the aether.'

'Quite.' The angel was pale too. 'I take it, then, that that was…'

'Yes.' The Bentley roared forwards into the night. 'The First Seal of Hell just broke.'

* * *

**:) Reviews please?**

**I promise more plot development will happen in the next chapter! Crowley just keeps hijacking the story with his snark. Sorry.**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Reposted this chapter as not only did this site delete every sentance containing the word Crowley last time (a problem for a GO fic) but there were some major errors in my own writing that I needed to iron out. So here we go.**

* * *

**Chapter V**

The First Seal had broken. The Gates of Hell were still held securely by the other four, but the breaking of the First had sent a huge shock of occult energy rippling out into the aether. Everyone with the slightest connection to the supernatural world felt it.

Angels and demons were hit the hardest, being as they were _composed_ of almost pure energy. The demons had the worst of it, as they were more tuned to the occult than angels. But the shockwaves spread out through the second plane, nudging the tiny part of the human mind that still connected to the higher realms. The tiny, locked-off, out-evolved connection to the supernatural, which despite its exile from the higher cerebral functions still effectively controlled the human race. Superstition, luck, folklore- all reverberating through this tiny little nodule of grey matter.

Some humans, the lucky few that won the genetic lottery, had a slightly stronger connection to the occult realms. They were mediums, or gurus, or spiritualists, or fortune tellers, or occasionally prophets or madmen. Many of them remained utterly unaware of the real source of this insight.

But at the moment that the First Seal broke, every single one of them received the slightest of shocks from the tiny part of their mind tuned to the second plane. It was of varying intensity, varying duration. To some it felt like a static electric shock. To others, it was the gut-twisting feeling of missing a step. To a few, it engendered a feeling of falling.

And for the very few who were aware of their connection to the occult, it came like the worst headache ever.

Even ordinary humans felt it. To most of them, though, it was just a twinge- the slightest little prod of something saying, unequivocally, _Watch out_.

The witches, of course, were instantly aware of the source of their shock. In the little coven at the epicentre of the shockwave, the feeling was almost as strong as that which had hit Aziraphale and Crowley. The force of the blast sent Horologia stumbling backwards, sent Unaneledus staggering, made Macrobiotus and Entomologia gasp and lose their balance, made the absent Diacritic and Prebenda yelp (which earned them some nasty glares from the other moviegoers **[1]**) and Maya Duff, sitting at her desk, nearly fell off her chair.

* * *

**[1] **Who had felt what they all assumed to be a static shock and put it down to the cinema's chairs, despite the fact that every single member of the audience had felt it.

* * *

In their living rooms, gossiping around cups of tea and biscuit assortments, the Old Witches felt it too. They had been witches all their lives, even if they didn't do the kind of showy spells which required blood spilt over ancient stones at midnight, and they knew in their souls exactly what had happened.

The chatter stopped for a moment as they all quietly reeled from the wave of power.

Mrs Hodges, the unofficial leader **[1]**, put down her knitting with a quiet _plink_.

'Oh, dear,' she said softly.

Mrs Bennet, her next-door neighbour, nodded sagely. 'I knew we should have done something earlier.'

'Well, it's done now,' Mrs Hodges said thoughtfully. 'Doris, dear, do you happen to have a crystal ball on you?'

Doris Brown nodded and produced it from her sturdy handbag, which, like all middle-aged women's handbags, was bottomless.

'Let me have a look, dear,' Mrs Hodges said as she put down her teacup. She took the crystal and shook it doubtfully. 'Dear me, these new-fangled gadgets are so very tricky to work with. In my day, we just used a saucer of ink…'

The crystal gently cleared as the five housewives gazed curiously at it.

'Oh, dear,' murmured everybody at once.

* * *

**[1] **The Old Witches were not organized enough to really have a Leader of the Coven, much to the disgust of the New Witches. But Mrs Hodges was the one who organized everything, so she was technically the leader they didn't have.

* * *

The energy reached Lower Tadfield. Most of it broke around the edges of the village like water around a stone, held back by the protective dome cradling the little place. Only half of the energy made it in. Most people in Lower Tadfieldnoticed nothing, being of a fairly sturdy, commonsensical disposition and not given to such flighty concepts as the occult.

The exception woke up at exactly the same time as the shock echoed around the world and almost fell out of bed.

In Adam's house, the shockwaves did not go unnoticed. The only being more tuned into the energies of Hell than the demons woke up and shook his head.

'_Not again_,' he murmured. At the foot of his bed, where Dog was not allowed to be, Dog was shaking and whimpering. He was enough of a hellhound still to know what had happened but not enough to not be terrified.

Adam blinked and looked around his darkened room. His eyes had a vague and incredibly focussed air to them that said that he wasn't seeing the messy bedclothes, the garments scattered across the room that were meant to be in the wash, the coffee mugs and the mysterious pieces of matter that materialise on all desks throughout the multiverse and appear to be small but vital parts of machines lost decades ago. Adam's eyes were looking at something entirely different and they weren't liking it.

'I'll fix it tomorrow,' he said finally, before lying down and going straight back to sleep, despite Dog's whining protests and attempts to wake his master.

The shockwaves reached London. In the vast and seething metropolis, only two people were keyed in enough to notice the Breaking of the Seal.

One squeaked and dropped a pan of sprouts on the floor. **[1]**

Madame Tracy, the only really reliable medium in London, didn't actually know what she'd just felt. But she was sure, thanks to a lifetime of dabbling in the occult and one memorable swim, that whatever it was wasn't good.

She stood for a moment, thinking furiously. She realized that she was out of her depth and that she had better contact that nice gentleman who had helped her out last time things had gone pear-shaped, and who had been really ever so polite when she had given him a lift in her mind for a while.

But first, because Madame Tracy was a practical soul, she cleaned up the sprouts. Then she set out to help save the world, again.

The other one sat up in bed so quickly she nearly fell out of it.

Anathema had moved out of the little, poorly furnished cottage and into the flat above Aziraphale's shop, which she had turned into an actual business, much to the angel's horror. Newt had come with her to help with the running of the shop (which mostly meant explaining to tourists that this shop sold books, not DVDs). Anathema had given up the realms of magic for good after her whole purpose in life had vanished, drifting for a little while before settling on Chartered Accountancy, which in terms of Black Arts was pretty high on the list. **[2] **On this particular night, she had come home tired from a long day of making money from people and gone straight to bed hoping for an uninterrupted nights sleep.

Of course she didn't get it. Of course.

_I have given up magic_, she told herself. _That was a… a… migraine. A cramp. A sudden and psychologically fascinating psychosis. It was _not _magic._

She lay down and tried to go back to sleep.

The problem with giving up magic, she thought after half an hour's not-sleep, was this. That however much you gave up on magic, it would not give up on you. You were stuck with it. Like the world's most clingy ex.

* * *

**[1] **Why exactly she was cooking sprouts at this hour is a mystery for the ages.

**[2] **Explaining her previous lifestyle and the need for retraining had been very interesting. "Descendant" wasn't a very common profession, although the man in the job centre had just nodded with glazed eyes, having seen every single aspect of humanity and been bored by it.

* * *

The Bentley gently pulled up outside 221b. Crowley parked it carefully on the one spot which was absolutely not available for parking, relishing the thought of all the other road users he would be infuriating, and wondering if some particularly dumb cop would try and clamp it or tow it. Anyone laying a finger on the Bentley was usually summarily dealt with in extremely short order.

The angel and the demon left the car and wandered up the stairs, gossiping genially.

'So what now?' Aziraphale asked.

Crowley shrugged. 'They've only got one seal. The best thing to do is keep an eye on the others. It's always possible that they broke it by accident.'

They shared silence for a moment.

'No, I didn't think so either,' Crowley said with a sigh. 'Look, the world is probably going to end. Again. What we have to do is this. We go out, we find a bar and we get totally drunk.'

'That won't help to save the world,' Aziraphale pointed out primly.

'No, but it will make me feel better.' Crowley unlocked the flat door and pushed it open. 'What do you suggest, angel?'

'Well…' Aziraphale was at something of a loss. 'We need to know just how these seals work. I'm sure I have a book somewhere that explains something like this- maybe a grimoire, or possibly one of the alchemical works of Ptolemy…'

'I knew you were hanging around Alexandria at the time of the first fire,' Crowley said triumphantly as he slumped on the sofa. 'Don't try to fob me off with that excuse about Cyrenaica.'

Aziraphale blushed. 'I never actually said that I wasn't in Alexandria-'

'Bull. You said you were over in the country next door trying to stop the first Mithritadic war.'

'Yes, but I didn't _lie_ as such.'

'Thou shalt not bear false witness, unless it gets you a first folio scroll of Ptolemy thought to have been destroyed,' Crowley said with heavy sarcasm.

Aziraphale changed the subject. 'Anyway. We need to find out about this magician Seimei as soon as possible.'

Crowley stretched. 'You could just ask.'

'You know something?' the angel asked as he sat down in the other armchair.

'I taught him all he knew,' Crowley said with a smug grin and a slight hiss.

* * *

_Japan__, 960AD. _

The man bowed, robe sweeping the floor. 'Arigato, Seimei-sama_.'_

The tall man near the window only smile and waved a hand. The bowing client scurried out, clutching the bottle of elixir that would take away his wife's pain.

The room was empty again. Neatly furnished in the style of the Heian period, it spoke of the success of its occupant, mage and onmyodo to the most powerful people in the country. Some would say that he _was _the most powerful person in the country.

Abe no Seimei turned away from the window and strode into the centre of the room. 'Shikigami! Orochi-akuma!'

'Yes, yes. There's no need to shout,' said an irritated voice in perfect Japanese. 'I'm right here.'

A tall man, or man-shaped creature, with unusual, pale skin and strange, golden eyes with slitted pupils stepped out of the air from where he had been hiding behind a nearby molecule.

'I have given Heiwajima-san the remedy that you brewed for me.'

The man-shaped creature appeared to be resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

'Will it really relieve his wife of pain?'

'Of course,' said the shikigami smoothly. 'I am, after all, a being of my word.'

_Of course it will take away her pain. And within moments, she will be unable to live without her elixir. For the rest of her life, until the tumour destroys her from within, she will be dependant upon the blissful surcease of the drug. And her husband and family will lose everything trying to pay for her fix._

Seimei crossed to the table upon which rested his potions and ingredients. He began to mix up another elixir. 'And this one? The medicine for Hikaru-sama's cough? What does it do?'

'Takes away the cough,' the shikigami said carefully. 'The energies of the fluids are well balanced. They will correct his chakra's instability.'

_Sugar, water and onion juice will ease the throat, cost you nothing and earn you a fortune if you play it right- which you probably won't, being you. You'll never make much of a demon. Your soul isn't worth taking. Far too clean._

'Hebi no Kuroru-san. Thank you for your aid,' the onmyodo said earnestly.

"Kuroru" scowled slightly. It wasn't as if he'd had any kind of choice. 'As long as you hold the Ring, Seimei-sama, I must follow you.'

It had been damned- blessed- somethinged- bad luck, he reflected. He had been visiting Japan as a nice little holiday, a way to get away from it all **[1]**, and BAM. Caught in the catchment of a Spirit Ring.

They were tricky little things, Spirit Rings. When activated, they would pull in any spirit who happened to be close by, meaning that more often than not they simply didn't work, spirits being nowhere near as plentiful as people believed. But this particular ring was forged by a powerful onmyodo and had a very large catchment area. The moment Crowley had set foot in Japan he'd been ensnared by it and ever since he'd been playing djinni.

* * *

**[1] **More specifically, a King with a warrant for his death and an angel with a warrant for his smiting. The first he could survive, the second he wasn't so sure, although whether or not Aziraphale would actually _kill_ him was debateable.

* * *

Seimei had risen to fame in a record time, being the only onmyodo in Japan with a success rate not involving only those numbers after the decimal place. And Crowley might have been trapped, but he was determined to ensure that Seimei's meteoric rise stayed true to its metaphor and ended in a fiery, burning Fall.

The problem there being that Seimei was far too nice. He even treated Crowley well. Crowley was not used to being enslaved, as very few magicians ever had the power and they mostly preferred to handpick their servants from Hell, which Crowley avoided on principle. But the one or two times it had happened, and the many stories he had heard, had not prepared him for a human who a) did not want wealth, power, immortality and a woman or b) actually treated him like a sentient creature.

Abe no Seimei trod the fine line between fear at a supernatural being who could rip him limb from limb and respect for what, in his religion, amounted to a minor godling. And he still managed to treat him almost like a friend.

Not that Crowley let him. He was out for the man's soul, not his friendship, although he might have to resort to using one to get the other if this carried on.

'-I said, that I have found it,' Seimei was saying with a perturbed glance at Crowley.

The demon shook himself and glanced at the onmyodo. 'I'm sorry, you have found what?'

'I have found the gate to Yomi,' Seimei repeated.

Crowley's eyes widened. 'You- you found-'

'It is well sealed,' Seimei said in a conciliatory tone. 'It shall not open until the seals are broken.'

Crowley found a voice. 'Those gates were sealed by the Archangel Michael for a damn- blessed- good reason!'

Seimei gave him a confused look. 'Who is Michael? Yomi was sealed after Izanami retreated to it.'

Crowley got himself under control. 'Of course. Of course. But none the less, whether Michael or Izanagi sealed them, it was for a very, very good reason. Namely, that it is He-Yomi. I'll just repeat that; _It. Is. Yomi._'

'But I found it,' Seimei said happily. 'It was my greatest work yet. I have accomplished a great feat. Generations will look back at me when I become an ancestor and remember me as the man who found Yomi.'

'Not if those gates open they won't,' Crowley muttered acerbically.

'But I have not opened them,' Seimei said. 'Izanagi sealed them well when he left Izanami there. The chibuki-no-iwa will not be shifted.'

'Good,' Crowley muttered, calming down.

'I have conferred the power of the chibuki-no-iwa into five seals. All five must break to release the gates of Yomi.'

Crowleynearly had a heart attack. Seimei motioned to some items standing on the table.

'The chi-seal. Amaterasu. In her base, hidden by a catch, lies the First Seal, the Seal of Earth.' Seimei indicated it. It was a jade statue, about thirty centimetres high, heavy, beautifully carved. The base had a faint line curving around it where it joined.

'The sui-seal. This Kyoto seal, made here by our finest craftsmen. When the lid is opened the Second Seal, the Seal of Water, will be completed and can be broken.' He picked up a wooden puzzle-box. Crowley knew those. The sections of the lid had to be slid into a certain order to open it, and this would sometimes reveal a picture.

A knock came at the door. Seimei put down the box and turned to it. Crowley hid behind a molecule again.

The woman who entered was a sorry state- weeping, begging for the aid of the onmyodo. Crowley ignored her. He was focussed on the seals. Beside the box sat a scroll, a kansubon, freshly copied. Woodblock printing was making headway with the monk's sutras but Seimei still preferred the old makimono. Crowley couldn't tell what was in the scroll but he was prepared to bet that, given context, it wasn't good.

* * *

'-and that's when the idiot summoned me to go and deal with the blabbering fool's problem,'Crowleyconcluded. 'When I returned he'd tidied up or something. I didn't see those seals again for a decade and he never told me where the other two were-'

The demon stopped. Aziraphale leaned forwards. 'What?'

'Shut up, angel. I'm thinking. I nearly… what was it?' Crowley frowned. Even occult- or, for that matter, ethereal- beings do not have perfect memory and this had happened nearly a thousand years ago.

'I think I recall… he was dying. And he took his own sweet time about it. I never did manage to get his soul, the cheeky perisher. And he was giving arrangements for his funeral. He never let me out when people were around, I remember, so I was hiding behind an atom above his head.'

_Japan__, 1007AD_

'What do you need, sensei?' the young man said with concern.

'Fetch… pen and paper…' came the old man's breath. 'I must tell you… some things…'

Pen and paper was fetched. The young man sat eagerly.

'When I am gone… the Emperor will build me a shrine,' Seimei said heavily. 'Do not speak to anyone of this. I… know it through my… powers.'

_Like hell you do. I was eavesdropping on the Emperor for you_, Crowley thought viciously.

'When he… does… you must build something for me…' he wheezed. 'Under the… torii gates… there will be a doman…seiman. Beneath the marble holding… the seal… you must place another… seal.'

The wizened old man made a gesture over to a scroll on the bench. **[1]** 'That… holds the… seal.'

'It shall be done, sensei,' the young man promised.

'And… the last item in my… will…' Seimei wheezed. 'The Noh… mask. Carved by… a master artist. It must go to the Imperial treasury.'

The young man wrote it down doubtfully. 'But sensei… it is only a mask.'

'It holds,' Seimei wheezed, 'a power beyond your… knowledge…'

With that he fell silent. People bustled around him, but there was nothing they could do. Seimei had made his last prophecy and there was nothing left to bind Crowley to this blessed island. As his master perished the fetters of the Spirit Ring had been released, and now all that was left for him to do was leave. Finally.

On his way out, he took the puzzle box. The further those seals were scattered the better and maybe he could neutralize it.

* * *

**[1] **Not _the _scroll, mind you. Just _a _scroll.

* * *

'You took the Kyoto Seal?' Aziraphale exclaimed. 'And you somehow forgot that you were holding the Key to Hell for all these centuries?'

'First, not _the_ key. _A_ key. Secondly, I didn't _forget_, per se. There were other things to worry about.'

'And at no point did you think you might tell me about this?' The angel was as close to angry as Crowley had ever seen him.

'We were enemies at the time. You were trying to kill me,' Crowley pointed out.

'I stopped that several centuries ago. You know, it would have saved us a great deal of worry if you had remembered this sooner,' Aziraphale said wryly.

'Why?'

'If you hold a seal, then they can't break it. They can't open the gates then.'

Crowley gave this some thought. Aziraphale interrupted his musings with a thought of his own.

'Where is it, then? If you have it.'

'Ah,' the demon said. He looked as close to uncomfortable as Crowley ever did.

'Please don't tell me you lost it,' Aziraphale said quietly. Crowley sensed a smiting coming his way.

'Not exactly _lost_, as such. Ah. Hidden for safekeeping. In a very, very, secret place.'

Aziraphale crossed his arms. 'So secret, you don't know where it is either.'

'Maybe.' Crowley tried to keep his cool and failed. It had been centuries since Aziraphale had been this angry at him. About four centuries, in fact, since Crowley had slightly started a small fire in London that turned into a very big fire and destroyed most of the city.

'Where did you last put it down?'

'This isn't a pair of car keys we're talking about, angel! This is the Key to Hell!'

'Yes, and _you_ lost it! This is like the Antichrist business all over again-'

'Don't you drag Adam into this!'

'Why does anybody trust you with things made to destroy the world? You always manage to put them down somewhere and forget about them and the next thing you know it's the Apocalypse-'

'Well, if we're talking about _losing things that could destroy the world_, angel, then we can start with that sword of yours!'

'I did _not_ lose that! I gave it away!'

'You gave away an angelic weapon capable of killing millions of occult and ethereal beings to _who_? Humans! What's their track record on this?'

'At the time they didn't have a track record! Anyway, that was charity, which is a virtue!'

'And it was also…' Crowley struggled to find a decent comeback. 'Stupidity! Which will become a sin just as soon as I get back Downstairs and put it in the committee agenda!'

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply, then sagged and sat down again. Crowley realized that they had both been standing up to yell at each other.

Crowley passed a hand over his eyes. 'Now I'm never going to be able to convince my landlady that we aren't married.'

* * *

**AN: Yeah, that last bit... kind of wrote itself XD It was just going to have them finding the Kyoto Seal and stuff, and then that old-married-couple argument was much more fun to write XD**

**Anyway, I did a stupid amount of research for this chapter so I reckon that is should be OK. I EVEN researched the Fire in Alexandria just for those two lines. And for the record, I picked the one in 89BC during the revolution in the reign of Ptolemy XVIII, just before the outbreak of the First Mithritadic War.**

**More relevantly, I also did research on Shinto and the history of Japan, so I hope that's accurate. And then I read through this entire chapter, so hopefully I caught all the space-deleting and it should now make sense. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Finally, a new chapter! Er. A few credits: This chapter inspired and occasionally ripped off of Eric, by Terry Pratchett. I really liked his description of the demon King's wings so I, er, stole it. Meep. Only a sentance, mind you.**

**Also, I have now written out the plot in detail so I know what's actually happening. I'm sorry about the number of OCs who are appearing, it's practically writing itself. I hope it still qualifies as fic.**

* * *

**Chapter VI**

Anathema sighed and got up. It was now four o'clock in the morning and she was having no luck whatsoever in ignoring the infernal magic that had woken her. She dressed quickly and padded downstairs quietly, careful not to disturb Newt.

The bookshop was very much as Aziraphale had left it, Anathema having an excellent survival instinct. You didn't need to be psychic to know what would happen if you messed with Aziraphale's books. The shelves in the main shop, however, had been moved to the back room to make room for shelves of books that they could actually sell. The backroom had thus become storage space that was almost impassable.

Anathema slumped tiredly into the chair behind the cash register. She carefully relaxed herself, realizing that by all rights she should now be able to fall asleep, having got up and dressed.

She was drifting gently into darkness when she felt something tug at the back of her brain.

'Not again,' she said out loud, but she didn't move or open her eyes. Maybe if she worked out what this was she could go back to sleep.

The tug came again. It was different to the sensation that had awoken her. That had been a jolt like a riptide tugging beneath the ocean of her consciousness. This was more of a gentle, but no less insistent, wave.

And again. And again.

Anathema pinpointed it. It was coming from the backroom of the shop, which they normally kept closed off and used for storage. She fumbled with the doorhandle, eyes still closed, relying upon her sixth sense for guidance.

Her other five senses chimed in with reasons why she should be using them as well as Anathema tripped over something and headbutted the doorframe. The resulting burst of infra-black stars and pain drowned out the pulsating signal for five minutes, during which time she opened the door properly, moved aside two bookshelves and slid onto the dusty old sofa that had been there when they arrived. They hadn't moved it. Even Newt's fashion sense was beyond tartan.

She waited until the pain receded and carefully prodded at the signal again. Eventually she found it, still patiently radiating psychic energy.

It was to her left and up. Her mind grasped at it and it slipped away, vanishing like a bar of soap in a shower. A really big shower. More of a swimming pool, in actuality. Like a bar of soap which you just dropped at the deep end and now have to dive twelve meters for.

Anathema searched fruitlessly for the signal again, doing the psychic equivalent of holding her breath. Just as her psychic lungs were about to explode- there it was.

Anathema swore and clutched her head. She went left and the signal intensified, so she kept going left until she found a bookcase.

This was where it was coming from.

She reached out a hand and ran it along the shelf gently. These books were old- so old that they were encased behind a sheet of glass, with a gently winking light at the edge telling her that this cabinet was climate-controlled. **[1]**

Most of them didn't even look like books, she thought. There were scrolls, rolls of loose parchment, scraps of vellum, and the occasional clay tablet. The occasional book made it in there too, fat and leather bound and nearly in pieces.

The signal was coming from one end…

There was a scroll. It was laid carefully on a perspex stand, tightly rolled. The outside was marked with letters in some Eastern language- Chinese?

Anathema pressed her hand against the glass. This scroll. This scroll was what was preventing her from sleeping. She pushed her face up against the barrier. From this distance she could see its aura, much greater and darker than any non-living being's had any right to be. Something in this scroll was clearly magical.

Anathema looked at the sides of the case, running her fingers over the clear plastic. She couldn't find any kind of switch for opening it with. **[3] **

Great. The pulse of infernal energy- _infernal? In the angel's shop?-_ was stronger now, like an itch in her head.

Anathema sighed and turned around. She was going to leave it until the morning, then she was going to call the angel and get him to sort this out.

* * *

**[1] **Anathema wisely didn't wonder how, as this room had no electricity.**[2] **If she had wondered, it would instantly have shut down, prompting the books to fall apart and inciting the Wrath of Aziraphale.

**[2] **In fact, the entire shop had no electricity, although Newt had decided to fix that up himself. Anathema had nodded, waited until the entire street had a blackout and called an electrician while Newt was visiting his mother.

**[3] **There wasn't one. Only a being with ethereal powers could open this case, and only if they knew the psychic passkey. Aziraphale was the only being capable of unlocking it.

* * *

The angel in question was currently sulking a little. This is an unbecoming attitude for any being of any status, but for an Angel of the Lord, a Principality ranking above other Angels and the sole agent for Earth, it was particularly degrading.

Aziraphale was sitting in an armchair, apparently calm. Any human would have thought him peaceful, even serene. To another ethereal, or even infernal, being, it was obvious that he was in something of a snit.

Crowley was standing by the fireplace. The angel had been ignoring him for ten minutes now and it was annoying him.

'Are you even listening?' he demanded. 'I said, I last saw the blessed thing in the Renaissance. Italy. That thieving magpie Da Vinci took it, I'm certain of it.'

Aziraphale showed no signs of having heard him.

'Really certain this time. I'm ssure we can find it if we look in Italy,' Crowley said in annoyance. 'Much more ssure than lasst time. Oh, sstop it, I ssaid I was ssorry about the France thing.'

No reply.

'The flight did you good. If you did flightss like that every night then you could lose sssome weight.'

The silence turned a bit chilly.

'Fine. I'll go and look for it on my own thiss time,' Crowley hissed.

No reaction.

'I'm going,' he hissed. 'On my own. You can sstay here. Catch your breath after the flight back from Parisss.'

Aziraphale did not move.

Huffily, Crowley stalked over to the open window. 'Fine, be like that,' he hissed.

Still nothing.

Crowley turned to the window, then turned back and grabbed at the mantelpiece quickly.

'See this skull? It's your replacement. It's more use and a better conversationalist,' Crowley sniped. Even this got no response. He'd been hoping for at least a query on how he'd got a human skull.

'Fine,' he said and jumped out of the window. Just before he hit the roof of the Bentley he spread his black wings **[1] **and caught a downdraft, soaring upwards. The people driving down the street couldn't believe they'd seen a person with wings, and so they didn't and instantly forgot about it.

* * *

Crowley didn't actually go to Italy, of course. Italy is a long way, even for a demon's wings and speed. Normally he could have made it there and back in two hours, but he'd already been to Paris and back and they'd visited Cornwall before that **[2]**. He was tired. He just didn't want to admit to being tired and had been relying on Aziraphale to be tired and insist on giving up for the night so that he could reluctantly agree.

**[1] **They weren't really black, any more than Aziraphale's wings were white. Angel wings, and by extension demon wings, are not coloured in a conventional way. They don't exist on the physical plane as such, being made of magnetism and shaped space, ethereal glow and energy, and coincidentally rather a lot of feathers. When a being takes a vessel, the essence of that being spills over into the form of wings. The wings of angels are made of love and light and honour, and they glow with holy energy and divine power. The wings of demons are made of hatred and bitterness and betrayal, glowing with manifest darkness and despair, and, of course, feathers. But technically, on the physical plane, those wings are white and black respectively.

**[2] **Crowley had a dim memory of possibly losing the Seal in a drunken poker game against a Cornish apothecary. They had found no trace of it anywhere.

* * *

So Crowley flew up as far as the roof, leaned against the chimney stack, tipped his head back to gaze at the stars, remembered that this was London and there weren't any, and decided to take a nap.

Below him, Aziraphale curled up in an armchair and tilted his head back to gaze at the ceiling.

By all rights, his friend should have been right above him. But that kind of thing requires premeditation, organization and a measuring tape, which takes any meaning away from it.

After some time of deep thought, Aziraphale muttered, 'Where on earth did he even get a skull from?'

The Old Witches were still gathered in Mrs Hodges house. It was now 4.30AM, much later than normal, but it was tacitly agreed that this was not a normal meeting.

'Still nothing?' Mrs Hodges asked as she brought through the fifth pot of tea.

'Well, nothing much of use,' Mrs Brown said apologetically. 'They haven't gone anywhere- still overjoyed at their victory.'

The assembled women tutted at the destructive nature of young people today.

'And I am afraid that we have no information on their goals,' Doris said.

'Actually,' came another voice, 'that's not quite true.' A studious looking young woman **[1] **with mousy brown hair and dull brown eyes peered at them from over a laptop screen. 'I did some research on the statue that we saw in Doris' crystal. It's a rather expensive piece which was stolen very recently. Last night, in fact. Apparently it disappeared as if… well, by magic.'

The older women all looked up in interest. The young woman flushed slightly. 'And that's not all. I traced back the history of the provenance, tracked it through archived auction sales and such, and I think it could be a little bit more than just a statue. You see, it appears to originally have been owned and commissioned a very long time ago by a very powerful magician.'

'A magician?' Mrs Hodges said slightly sceptically. 'You do know, don't you, that there are very few actual magicians out there-'

'This one was genuine,' the girl interrupted. 'You won't have heard of him, but I did some research. He was powerful enough to enslave a demon.'

'That's all very nice, Samantha,' said Doris with a hint of patronisation. 'But I still don't-'

'That's not all,' Sam said defiantly. _And someday I will get you to actually call me Sam,_ she vowed to herself. 'Seimei- the mage- according to legend, he created five seals. Five seals that held shut the gates of Hell. And one of them, apparently, was hidden in a statue of Amaterasu.'

The witches were quiet for a moment.

'I see,' Mrs Hodges said heavily. 'So, what we felt-'

'Was Hell's gates opening,' Sam completed.

The witches immediately went into a chattering discussion and Sam sighed, returning to her laptop to continue her research. She carefully tweaked her search terms, opened up a word document and started taking notes.

* * *

**[1] **Sam,the youngest member of the Old Witches, who was barely out of her teens. There was an age-gap of over a decade between her and the next youngest. When Horologia, nee Jane, had broken away from the group, she had been the only one not to follow. **[2]**

**[2]** She liked to think that this was because she was strong-willed and independent and had nothing to do with the fact that she had been off sick that day and thus was not around at the time.

* * *

It was the day after the beginning of the end of the world. The various players in this drama were either waking up or looking out of the window, realising that the sun was up and going to sleep for a desperate five minutes.

Anathema fell asleep on the old sofa in the backroom at 6.30 in the morning, after a trying five hours of lying with her eyes closed thinking about sleep. Half an hour later, she was woken up by Newt, who had to hide in the scullery for half an hour to escape her.

Adam woke up at 7.00 prompt, as he always did, after a night of deep and uninterrupted sleep. Dog was still curled on the foot of his bed, so he pushed the former hellhound out of the bedroom door before either of them got into trouble for it.

The Old Witches had gone to bed at 5.00, finally giving in, and all of them slept in later than usual, especially Sam. Sam had stayed up long after the others had been asleep, having snuck in through her bedroom window as she always did after meetings, and sat up in the dark lit only by the glow of her laptop screen. She filled an entire memo pad with notes and fell asleep in an incredibly uncomfortable position at 6.45. Sam awoke at midday to find that her entire lower body and one arm was totally numb, but she ignored it in favour of springing out of bed to try and prevent the end of the world.

Half an hour later, after she had regained the use of her legs and arm, she tried it again with a great deal more success.

The New Witches, on the other hand, had stayed up until 4.45 celebrating their triumph and planning their next move. Macrobiotus and Entomologia had struggled to stifle yawns all night, and finally Horologia and Unaneledus let them go home. Horologia hid the remains of the Broken Seal under some gorse bushes by the standing stone and struggled back to her house. Unaneledus had stalked off across the moor as day began to break, and then he too had snuck in through a window. But he opened it with magic and Caused the air to fly him up, so his pride was salved.

Madame Tracy, on the other hand, had slept very well. She was rather better than Anathema at ignoring things, and thus when she felt the insistent pulse of magic emanating from the room next door, she rolled over and went back to sleep. **[1]**

* * *

**[1]** She had put away the sprouts and was on the verge of rushing out when she realized that she had no idea where to go or what to do and was thus much better off having a good night's rest.

* * *

Aziraphale and Crowley, technically, do not need to sleep. Aziraphale was thus prepared to spend all night awake researching the lost Seal.

Crowley was not. He had grown accustomed to a full night's snooze over the centuries and saw no reason to stop now.

At around 4AM, therefore, he snuck back down off the roof and climbed in through his own room's window.

* * *

It was midday. In Lower Tadfield, the sun was shining brightly, because it was June and Adam hadn't cottoned on yet that in Britain, June means intermittent showers which take delight in waiting for the appearance of pools, barbecues or picnics before materializing and prompting a dash for a marquee.

Sam's house was not in Lower Tadfield. Thus, it was not sunny. Her parents had tried to set up the garden table to eat lunch on the patio, and so it had immediately begun to recreate the Great Flood.

Sam had made it downstairs by half-past twelve and, with her laptop under her arm, dashed out to the car to prevent the end of the world.

A few minutes later, she dashed back to retrieve her car keys, an umbrella and a coat.

A few minutes after that, she dashed back in again to get changed, remembering that she'd never changed out of her clothes from the night before.

At one o'clock, she finally made it out to the car and set off for London.


	7. Chapter 7

******AN: This should have been longer. But IRL stuff means I dont feel like writing right now so I'm posting what I've done. Sorry.**

* * *

**Chapter VII**

Madame Tracy had been too busy that morning to really investigate the psychic pulse coming from next door. She'd had two séances to do and then she'd had to clean out the oven, which was getting filthy. So it was nearly two o'clock when she finally remembered the gentle nudge at the back of her mind.

She followed the call of the signal across the hallway and was about to open the door when her intercom buzzed. She sighed and scurried back to her flat.

'Hello?' said the voice on the other end of the intercom. 'Is anybody there?'

'Who is this?' questioned Madame Tracy with deep suspicion. She might be elderly and not really a medium but she was no fool, or so she liked to think, and you could never tell. It might be a conman, or a murderer, or a door-to-door-salesman.

'I'm from the local electricity company, there's been some power outages in this area lately and I'd just like to take a look around to ensure there aren't any problems,' the voice came back calmly. Whoever it was, they were young, female and British. She didn't sound like a door-to-door-salesperson, but you couldn't be too careful.

'Can I see some ID?' Madame Tracy queried.

There was a brief silence. It sounded slightly aggravated, if silence can have a sound.

'Ma'am, this is a voice intercom. There is no camera. You can see some ID if you buzz me in,' pointed out the visitor, not unfairly.

Madame Tracy shrugged and pressed the buzzer. 'There you go, dear.'

'Thank you,' said the girl with an air of relief.

Sam had driven as quickly as she could to London, although this was not actually very quick, given that she had spent a fair amount of time yelling at her sat-nav and consulting instead the directions that she had printed off from Google Maps. She had made it most of the way to the address she'd eventually found before braking so fast she'd nearly crashed.

Sam hunched over the wheel of the battered black Chevrolet, eyes closed, heart pounding, reaching out mentally for the signal.

It wasn't like the Breaking of the Seal. It was subtler, more gentle. But it was the same… _type_ of feeling. Like cappuccino and espresso were both coffee, just… different.

Sam sighed. Being slightly psychic could be really annoying.

She restarted her engine, parked the car more neatly on the side of the street, thanked her lucky stars that she hadn't caused an accident, and hopped out, carefully locking the car. It wasn't technically hers. She'd be in big trouble if the car got damaged.

Sam looked up and down the street. It was residential, with a couple of blocks of flats blotting out the sunlight. She strolled up and down the street, trying to catch the pulse again.

There it was. Somewhere in this block of flats, somebody was hiding a Seal.

Sam strolled up to the doors and glanced at the intercom. There were dozens of buttons but she just needed to get into the building, it didn't matter which apartment she picked. What excuse could she pull off?

She closed her eyes, pushed a button at random. The intercom buzzed.

'Hello? Is anybody there?' Sam asked nervously.

'Who is this?' the intercom crackled. It sounded like an elderly woman. Perfect.

'I'm from the local electricity company, there's been some power outages in this area lately and I'd just like to take a look around to ensure there aren't any problems,' Sam lied.

'Can I see some ID?' the woman- Sam checked the label on the button. Madame Tracy? What kind of name was that?- asked suspiciously.

Sam froze and panicked for a moment. She didn't have any fake ID!

Wait a moment. She just needed to get _in_. She didn't need to see this woman. And there was no camera here.

'Ma'am, this is a voice intercom. There is no camera. You can see some ID if you buzz me in,' Sam replied as calmly as she could manage.

Silence for a moment, then the door clicked. 'Thank you,' Sam said, and dashed inside.

Sam straightened her jacket and crossed the lobby as calmly as she could. She was technically trespassing and just because she was a witch didn't mean she was a regular law-breaker.

The signal was coming from above her. She headed purposefully for the lift, changed her mind when she saw the state of it, and with a sigh began to climb the stairs.

Sam reached the top of the last flight of stairs, panting a little at the hike. The signal was much, much stronger now, pulsing darkly in her head.

Sam wandered slowly along the corridor, trying to find the apartment. Every step she took intensified the call of the object- whatever it was. Sam felt that it was somehow tied to the Seal that had broken, but how she didn't know.

Sam cried out and clutched at her forehead as a spike of pain shot through her brain. She stumbled against the wall as the dark energy screamed at her psychic side and a fractured vision shot through her head. A box- worn, wooden, ornately carved- golden, snake-like eyes- a pair of dice tumbling over and over through the dark- a cup of red liquid- flames, licking higher and higher, and screaming- the flames screaming…

Sam was driven to her knees by the hammer blow of the pain. She knelt on the dusty, threadbare carpet of the hallway, eyes squeezed shut. The fractured visions continued and repeated.

She was sobbing in pain and curled up in the foetal position when Madame Tracy found her. The elderly medium was just crossing the hallway, to try and locate the source of the pulse, when she heard Sam's crying.

Sam barely noticed when she was lifted bodily and carried across the hall. The visions and the pain intensified as she was moved closer to the source of the disturbance, but Sam was far too busy crying to actually say anything helpful about it.

Sam felt something soft, like cushions, under her as she was laid down again. She didn't dare open her eyes yet, though, and she still wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, overwhelmed as she was with pain.

While Sam cried and Madame Tracy fussed over her, nobody was paying attention to the source of the trouble. Across the hall, in the opposite apartment, sat a huge cabinet. It was filled with papers, most incredibly old and extremely valuable and mostly covered in nicotine residue and the debris of ages. There were the ancient volumes of witchcraft- the Malleus Maleficarum and all its kindred- and there were the registry lists- the tomes of records detailing many past generations of hunters, guardians against the dark, and many subsequent generations of inventions created to fill the gaps in the ranks. There were maps, priceless examples of the cartographer's craft, and old trophies. Souvenirs. A dagger, rusted blunt; a gun, empty and long since jammed; a sword that had long ago become fit only for letter opening. And relics of the enemy, too, once borne home proudly as tokens of triumph, now consigned to the back of the cupboard, as obsolete and faded as the Army itself.

For this was the cupboard containing almost all that was left of the once mighty Witchfinders. **[1]**

Let the eye of the imagination look deeper into its recesses. It's much safer than attempting it with the physical, at least without a hazmat suit.

Look past the old ledgers of pay and roll. Look past the books containing the secrets not of the Devil, but of mankind, which is a lot nastier and much better at harming people in inventive ways. Look past the rolls of priceless, ancient maps, some of which have been used as housing for (very desperate) mice. Look past the old flintlock pistol of WA Lance-Corporal Havelock Ramkin. Look past the rusting dagger that had been cursed by a warlock four centuries ago **[2] **and the blunted sword that had decapitated three people at once, one of whom was wielding it at the time.

**[1]** Almost all, because this cupboard did not currently contain Shadwell or Newt (who had never troubled to have his license revoked even though he was technically consorting with the Enemy on a daily basis).

**[2] **With markedly little success. The WA Private who had received the dagger went on to become a Colonel, having long since burned the warlock, and married and had six children. He lived to a ripe old age and bequeathed a fortune to his descendants. This story has a moral. The author is unsure what the moral is.

Look past the shrunken head of an Amazonian witch. Look past the blackened skull of an American warlock. Look past the fine necklace seized from an Essex noblewoman as she struggled with her captor. Ignore, if you value your faith in humankind, the tiny rag doll pulled from the hands of a child accused of being possessed. Move past the scrolls of demonic wisdom (which contain nothing more than poetry in Arabic, but were enough to hang a man).

Look past all these relics of a thousand lives taken in the name of the Lord. Look past all the fatuous reasons created by men to hide their longing for blood.

Look to the back of the cupboard where, hidden under a silken kerchief pulled from the neck of a young girl with the misfortune to be born with an extra finger, sits a box. An ornately carved wooden box. It was seized from the possessions of a man in Cornwall who was accused of consorting with a demon and healing by its power. **[1]**

The box is old. Very old. And it is powerful, far more powerful that the soldier who'd seized it could ever have dreamt.

Because this box- alone of all the items, magical and mundane, in that cupboard- this box had been the property of a demon. And it was made, so many centuries ago, for one purpose.

To open the gates to Hell.

**[1] **For once, this was partly accurate. He had indeed been consorting with a demon, although he didn't know anything about it at the time, and he hadn't needed its help to heal. He was unfortunate enough to be a very good apothecary, who cured one too many people and was marked for life as a witch for it.

Sam curled in around her aching head, wishing for the pain and the visions to stop. The same images haunted her brain, over and over, and her mind felt like it was being shaken into pieces. Snake eyes. Falling dice. Goblet of red. Flames. Screaming. Occasionally a face jumped into view- an old man in what looked like they could have been robes, but he was faint and fuzzy and distant and fleeting. A man in possibly a tunic, maybe? He was fleeting too, and very dark. Whenever he appeared the flames came back. But most of all, the strongest face, was a youngish man with dark, curly hair and alabaster skin and stupid cheekbones, and icey blue eyes. Except that they weren't icey blue, they were gold. Golden. Gold eyes. Sam nearly screamed with the pain as she tried to concentrate. Always the gold eyes.

But the visions didn't go anywhere. They stayed and grew stronger and Sam couldn't break free, she couldn't _think_.

Which was a shame. Because if her head had been just a little less painful, and if her mind had been just a bit more clear, she might have recognized the man with the ice blue eyes, whose face was well known across the country, and the whole thing might have been over far quicker.

Aziraphale hadn't slept. He didn't need to. He was still searching through the files, papers and books littering the flat for information on the Seals.

Contrary to general belief, and indeed to specific belief on the part of Crowley, Aziraphale was completely capable of using the internet, albeit in a rather limited way. Search engines, at least, he had mastered because it was the only way he'd ever find the information he needed whilst working in Afghanistan. He'd even begun to keep a blog.

A blog which he was studiously updating, looking over his shoulder occasionally to make sure that Crowley didn't interrupt him and hijack the blog. Aziraphale wouldn't put it past the demon to take over his site and destroy all of his good work.

It was two o'clock and Aziraphale was still at work. He had stopped only for the copious cups of tea now littering every surface in the flat, and he had almost forgotten about the demon who was sulking on- he assumed- the roof.

Aziraphale had, much to his chagrin, found very little. Most of the books to which he would have normally turned were still residing in his old shop, and he made a mental note to go and find them as soon as possible. But from the tiny collection of books in the flat, which mostly appeared to be scrapbooks of the great variety of reprehensible behaviour the human race was capable of, and also encyclopaedias which appeared never to have been opened, he had gleaned some information regarding Abe no Seimei which might have revealed the other three Seals. That is, if he had really been paying attention.

There is an object lesson here. It demonstrates that, like people, angels also see only what they expect and want to see. If they shared the miraculous power possessed by animals, who are secretly a great deal more intelligent than they are letting on, of seeing _what is really there_, then perhaps- again- this story would have been somewhat shorter.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Oh, gosh, I'm so so sorry. This was being written for ages and for some reason I just completely lost motivation to get the damn thing done. Of course, I still have to update all my other fics- and I'm sorry if you're waiting for those- but as this was the closest to completion, I decided to try and push myself to fix the stupid thing.**

**I'm not happy with this chapter. I read and reread it and I can't put my finger on _why_ I'm not happy with it. It seems... weak. But here it is anyway. If I manage to improve it, promise I'll take it down and rewrite.**

**Also- quite a lot of this chapter, and stuff about witches, comes straight from the Discworld. I figure that given that it's Pratchett, it's fair game. :)**

* * *

**Chapter VIII**

Sam struggled to stay afloat in the stream of images pouring through her mind. The visions were memories of a sort, she thought, but not hers. It was difficult to keep her own identity and mind afloat in this sea of other people's thoughts.

Of course, the headache really wasn't helping.

The above paragraph has been presented as a clear and well laid out thought process. In reality, it was nothing of the kind. It was more like someone screaming in agony, barely able to focus thought on what she was experiencing, dimly placing a word to describe the mental sensations whilst yelling several very obscene words regarding the physical sensations.

In fact, that was exactly what it was and Madame Tracy, who had picked the poor girl up and carried her to a sofa, was listening with mild disapproval- such language! Where had she learnt it?- and some sympathy. In the absence of any real knowledge of psychic first aid, she had defaulted to the coping mechanism shared at some deep genetic level by all English people, and made a cup of tea.

She placed a steaming mug on the edge of the coffee table next to the girl, who was really in no condition to be drinking but it was the thought that counted, and sipped at her own as she wondered what to do with the poor thing. The yells and swearing had given way to a gentle, pained sobbing.

The girl was young- really very young indeed to know that kind of language. She couldn't be more than eighteen. Her face was screwed up in pain and her eyes were shut tight, wet with tears, and her features were distorted and obscured as she clutched at her head, but she didn't look especially prepossessing. Of course, nobody really looks their best under these sorts of circumstances and when she was feeling better, maybe she'd turn out to be very pretty and intelligent. It didn't look very likely at the moment. She had mousy brown hair, tied up in a sort of sticky-out ponytail that was too short to really be much of a ponytail at all at the base of her neck, and she was stuck in that awkward stage between slim and plump which results in the spare flesh being distributed to all the wrong areas. She was wearing a baggy grey hooded top and a pair of shapeless jeans that were frayed at the hem in a way that totally failed to be fashionable. She was about ten years away from shapeless floral prints and sandals with plastic flowers on them, two kids, and a job as a secretary.

Sam wasn't aware at this point of the scrutiny she was under, which was probably just as well. Had she been conscious, she would in all likelihood have taken great offence at this assessment of her character.

The Seal pulsed again and she yelped as her head throbbed. She turned over and curled herself up tighter in an effort to shield her head from the signal- fruitless, but instinctive. In her flailing, however, she only managed to swipe the tea mug off of the table and knock scalding tea all over herself.

The boiling liquid on her face made her screech. She sat up and began frantically dabbing at the tea.

A moment later she froze as she realized that she had _sat up_. And she could feel the pain of the hot tea. And her head hadn't exploded.

It still hurt, of course. She could still feel the Seal pulsing gently- or not so gently- at her. But it was manageable now, as it had been before she entered the building. And, she realized, she was no longer seeing… things. Hallucinations. Must have been. A temporary bout of insanity, Sam decided. Happens all the time to people on the news. At least she hadn't decided to start smashing things.

Pleased with the progress she was making back towards sanity, Sam decided that it was now time to take the big step of opening her eyes and working out where she was.

When she did so, the light stabbed her in the eyeballs and began to drill through her skull with a jackhammer.

After a moment, her vision adjusted and the crew of builders on her head went away again.

'Hello?' Sam whispered. 'Where…'

She stopped and cleared her throat. There was no need to whisper. 'Hello?'

Clearly her vocal cords hadn't got the memo. Her throat hurt too. 'He-'

She broke off into a bout of coughing, during which her vocal cords took the opportunity to present to her several important memos and reports which she hadn't been aware of previously, for example that the crew of builders drilling through her head appeared to have also sandpapered her throat and taken out a few important items such as her spit glands. She looked around for some kind of drink and saw another cup of tea, half empty, sitting on the other side of the table. Grabbing at it, she spilt half of it down her front and swallowed the rest, ignoring the heat.

'He-hello?' Sam tried again. This time her voice was audible, although it still sounded distinctly frog-like and hoarse- a confusing metaphor, but an apt description for a confusing sensation.

'Oh, are you feeling better, dear?' A gentle and elderly voice sounded from the left. Sam turned her head slowly and waited for the spots to settle. A woman was standing by the side of the couch, watching her in concern.

'Who- who are you?' Sam demanded as best she could.

'I'm Madame Tracy, dear. Would you like another cup of tea? You've made rather a mess with that one. No, no, sit still, I'll get it.' Madame Tracy bustled off and Sam awkwardly tried to brush herself down- futile, of course, because tea doesn't brush off, but an instinctive reaction none the less.

'Milk or sugar, Sam?' Madame Tracy called.

'Just milk,' Sam called back politely. A moment later she stopped. When had she mentioned her name?

The sign on the half-open flat door caught her eye. _Madame Tracy, Medium, Draws Aside the Veil! Explore the Mysteries of The Unknown! Afternoons everyday except Thursdays!_

Ah. A psychic, then. Of course there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Madame Tracy came through with the tea. 'There you go, dear. And here's a towel, too, to mop yourself down with.'

Sam dried herself off as best she could, ignoring the unpleasant throbbing in her mind, and sipped gratefully at the tea. 'Thank you very much, Madame Tracy.'

'You're very welcome, dear.' Sam sat awkwardly on the settee in silence.

'Er, Madame Tracy, how did I get here?'

'I carried you. You were having some kind of episode.'

Well, that explained the bruises forming on her back. 'Thank you. Um. I don't suppose-do you know who lives in the apartment across the hall?'

'Oh, that'll be Mr S, dear. Were you wanting to see him?'

'I-' Sam began. Her Second Thoughts cut in quickly. 'Yes. It's…er… important.'

'Well, I don't think he's there right now.'

'Oh, well, if you could just let me into his apartment, I'll wait,' Sam said quickly.

'I don't think I should, dear. How about you wait here instead?' Madame Tracy might have been elderly, but she clearly wasn't quite as easy to fool as Sam had hoped.

'Um… OK, look, I know how this sounds. But it says on your door that you're psychic, so maybe you'll get it,' Sam began quickly. 'I'm a witch, and last night something very… very bad happened. Very bad. And I need to find someone in London- somebody who, well, who has something. Something that they don't know is important. But when I was driving past I kind of… someone in this building has something incredibly dangerous and now it's waking up and I think it's this Mr S you mentioned because whatever it is is across the hall from you and it's yelling out mentally and giving me one hell of a migraine and that's why I need to get in there.'

It was a credit to Madame Tracy's sharp mind that she managed to keep up with this. 'A witch, are you dear?'

Sam blushed. 'Sort of. I mean… yes.'

'Good. You're no witch if you don't think you are,' Madame Tracy remarked. 'Well. And who in London were you looking for?'

Sam was about to reply when the pounding in her head reached a crescendo. She winced, took a breath and gulped at her tea- and the pounding dimmed again. Sam frowned at her mug, then answered the question.

'I found… I was tracing some items online,' she began carefully. 'Various things that were… linked to what happened. The only one I was able to find the records for was bought about three hundred years ago by a Mr Ezra Fell and it's been in his family ever since. The current Mr Fell was last heard of running a bookshop in Soho. That's where I was headed.'

Madame Tracy nodded. 'Well, dear. I think you'd better start from the beginning, then. This sounds like a long story.'

* * *

Crowley slept until three o'clock. When he opened an eye groggily and reluctantly acknowledged the sunlight landing on his face, he swore and miracle the curtains closed before going straight back to sleep.

* * *

Anathema was tired and groggy and at least three quarters asleep. She was, however, also a witch. And that meant that she was stubborn and proud and just a little bit stupid in her unwillingness to cave in and sleep, and so she was up and dressed and getting on with the things that needed doing. Currently, she was baking some cookies. They were possibly the only cookies in the world that would need a health-hazard warning and she was sure that they weren't meant to smell like that, but it would all come out alright when she cooked it, she was sure. The mix was clutching at her spoon, it was true, but once she'd beaten off the little hands it let go.

The bell over the shop door rung and Anathema heard Newt greeting some new customer. She hummed along with the radio as she merrily beat the cookie mix. It gave a little squeak and shrunk away.

'No, I'm afraid that he's left,' she heard Newt say. Anathema, in the middle of wrestling the mix onto the tray, listened in. 'Yes, a few months ago… I think so, we have his address somewhere… Anathema!'

Anathema put down the bowl on top of the stove and came through into the front of the shop, wiping her hands. Behind her, the mix began to ooze over the edge of the bowl.

Standing in the middle of the shop were two women. The older one wore a lot of bangles and had a vaguely disreputable air. Anathema recognized her from somewhere but was hard pressed to say where. The younger one- no more than a girl- was plain and somewhat plump, and she appeared to have recently been ill or crying. Her eyes were red and her face the unattractive blotchy puce achieved through extended sobbing. She was clutching a flask of something like a lifeline.

'They want to find Mr Fell,' Newt informed her. 'Do you have his address anywhere?'

Anathema tiredly blinked. 'Back room. I'll go and look.' She smiled politely at the customers and turned around to open the back room door.

Her mind was fairly tired and fogged with sleep, but even so she still retained the capability to see auras. The woman with the jewellery had a very bright aura, very receptive. It looked like it had been stretched out of shape at some point, like a piece of clothing that somebody else had worn and pulled to fit themselves. Anathema wondered vaguely if she'd been possessed at some point- it didn't seem quite right somehow. She still couldn't figure out where she'd seen her before. The other girl… her aura was dim, and dark, and shot through with the hot pink flashes of someone in some form of mental distress. It was also throbbing in time with the pulse that was _still_ coming from that scroll, dammit, and despite Anathema's efforts at psychic warding she could see that the thing was broadcasting on all frequencies.

The question that remained in her mind, therefore, as she sorted through the heaps of paper on the desk shoved into the corner of the room and blockaded by shelves, was this- _Why were there two psychics in the shop_, _and why were they looking for the angel_?

Anathema was no fool. She had survived an apocalypse by deciphering a sixteenth century text and she was a witch to boot. She could tell that whoever these people were, they were part of something and so was this scroll. Something big was happening and suddenly she regretted burning that book of Agnes'.

She triumphantly extracted the paper with _221b Baker Street_ scrawled in messy copperplate across it from the pile and made her way back through the obstacle course.

'Here you go. 221b Baker Street,' Anathema said as she handed it over. 'Can I just ask- why are you looking for Mr, ah, Fell?'

'We have something to give him,' the young girl said, speaking up for the first time. Her voice was a little shaky. She took a sip from the flask and appeared to relax a little. 'A gift. Um. Can I ask…' she winced and put a hand to her head. 'I… let's go. Sorry,' she said to Anathema. She turned to the older woman. 'Please can we leave? One is bad enough but there's something here-'

Anathema was sharp enough to spot that something was going on. She turned to a befuddled Newt and said, 'Could you run through to the kitchen? I was making cookies and I left the oven on- would you mind just putting the trays in?'

Normally she wouldn't have let him anywhere near the cooker but her sweet and well meaning partner was about as psychic as a lettuce leaf and thus had no idea whatsoever what was going on. He nodded and left.

'What are your names, please?' Anathema asked in such a business like tone that both Sam and Madame Tracy simply blinked and told her. It was a skill she had.

'Very nice to meet you. Listen, just a quick question- did you, or both of you,' This was primarily addressed to Sam, the girl with the pulsing aura, 'happen to wake up in the middle of the night last night with this sudden sort of… mental scream?'

Sam blinked. 'How did-'

'Yeah, me too. Sam, from your aura I can see that you have some form of extrasensory perception,' Anathema said matter-of-factly. 'Have you, by any chance, got a bloody terrible migraine from some stupid scroll that keeps pulsing at you?'

'Er, it's a box,' Sam said in bewilderment.

Anathema sighed. 'Great. Two of the… whatever-they-ares. Given all this, then, I suppose you know that Mr Fell is-'

She stopped and blinked. Her brain had just taken the opportunity to present her with a memory from thirty years ago, a little faded around the edges but still very vivid. Anathema, an experienced witch and occultist, was wise enough to recognize her Third Thoughts when they crept up and smacked her around the face.

'Madame Tracy! I remember you!' she exclaimed. 'You're… you were the one who gave Aziraphale a lift!'

Madame Tracy frowned. 'I'm sorry, dear, but I don't think so. You must be confusing me with someone else-'

'No, no, it's you!' Anathema's face fell. 'Oh. Of course. You… you forgot.'

'Forgot what?'

'Thirty years ago. The day the world nearly ended. You were there.'

Madame Tracy's brow creased. 'I… yes. Yes! I was! Silly old me, getting forgetful in my old age.'

'No, no, it wasn't you- well, maybe- it was Adam. He put it all back, y'see, and made everything so it never happened, and of _course_ if it never happened people just said it couldn't ever have been the case because you don't get the same day twice over and anyway, it had to have been a dream because everyone _knows_ things like that don't happen. He didn't even need to _do_ anything.' Anathema sighed. 'I remembered because I'm a witch and we don't forget things like that. We can see what's really there. And some of the others remembered too because they _believed_ what they saw, or they knew that things like that happened, or they didn't know that they didn't, but most people forgot.'

Ninety percent of this went whistling straight over Madame Tracy's head. About forty percent of it stuck on Sam, who watched rather too much science fiction and spoke fluent exposition babble.

Sam nodded and took another sip of tea. 'Um, Miss Device-'

'Call me Anathema,' Anathema said brightly.

'Anathema. Er, I have a kind of question…'

'Yes?'

'What on earth is going on?'

'That,' said Anathema, 'is a very good question. But I know somebody who can answer it. Which reminds me- you do know that, uh, Mr Fell- well, he's not exactly-' Anathema paused delicately.

Sam covered her face. 'Today just can't get weirder. Let me guess. He's actually an angel.'

Anathema paused and tilted her head. 'Well done. Listening to your Third Thoughts and First Sight is always a good way to judge.'

Sam gave her a look which very clearly stated her feelings on people talking about things she didn't understand. 'I was being sarcastic.'

* * *

Aziraphale felt the psychic pulse from a street away. He put down his laptop, picked his way over the clutter to the window, and peered out through the curtains just in time to see a taxicab deposit two witches, a medium and a Seal to Hell onto the pavement.

'It's going to be one of those days,' he said to himself and went to put the kettle on.

* * *

**Yeah. Weak, and also short. But at least it's an update. Feel free to flame this chapter. I wouldn't blame you at all.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Ahem. I did not forget about this for months, I swear. Honest. *cough***

**Here's another chapter, and it was like getting blood from a stone, but I wrote it. I suspect it's not worth the wait. The only reason I've finally got it done is because I decided to give up writing original stories for Lent and I've run out of Dresden Files.**

* * *

**Chapter IX**

The coven were gathering. It was midnight again, one week after the First Seal had broken.

Tonight, they were meeting in a cave. It had taken a great deal of effort to find one that was suitably eldritch, but eventually Horologia had managed it. It had neither a waterfall or a still pool for scrying, so Horologia was currently attempting to maintain two water-creation spells at once. The effort was making her cranky and distracted, but it was worth it.

Unaneledus arrived first. Fashionably late. He was still the earliest, though, because the others had unfashionably forgotten.

They came, later, in dribs and in drabs. Prebenda and Diacritic, in Robes of Sequinned Night bought from the local charity shop. Then Macrobiotus and Entomologia traipsed in, sheepishly. Entomologia was wearing a thoroughly non-fetching black velvet dress of the type which looks good only on anorexics, but at least she'd made an effort. Macrobiotus, on the other hand, was wearing an ill-fitting shirt and tie. She'd have to have Words with him.

When the coven had gathered, Horologia stepped forwards.

'Brothers, sisters,' she announced. 'Our Sister in Darkness, Maya, has left us.' There was a shared look of bewilderment amongst the coven as the figure behind Horologia, face hidden under the hood of a cloak, stirred. 'But we have a new sister. Even as the powers of Light win back what is rightfully ours, we gain a new power to aid us.' Horologia gestured triumphantly; Unaneledus ducked as her hand whistled past his ear. 'This is our Sister in Darkness, sworn to evil, hated by the light, come to worship the power that is rightfully ours. Brothers, sisters, I give you Gad'reel Dean!'

The figure in the cloak stepped forwards and lowered her hood. She was not really tall, not quite as thin as you needed to be to be wearing the dress she was wearing. She had long, iridescent midnight black hair, with wisps of mousy brown escaping from under the horribly visible wig cap. Her eyes were blue as ice, but with the distinctive ring around the iris (not to mention the distinctive wince) of contacts. She had pale, not – very – porcelain skin that had clearly been covered in pale foundation to hide spots.

Sam stepped forwards with her head held high arrogantly. The assembled Coven looked at her with unbridled curiosity. They recognized her, of course.

'Greetings, brothers, sisters. I am proud to be here and to serve the Dark.' Sam – Gad'reel – gave a cold smile.

_Earlier that week_

Aziraphale pushed open the door of the shop. It creaked in exactly the way that he remembered and the angel hummed happily as he drank in the atmosphere of dry, papery cool peace.

The peaceful feeling of homecoming was quickly destroyed as he noticed the new carpet, fresh paint and trim, metal bookshelves containing row after row of bestsellers. It was with increasing alarm that he scanned the shelves, noting the utter absence of any book older than two years. At least, he consoled himself, there was no sign of _50 Shades of Grey_. Much as he disliked the process of smiting, reserving it for truly horrendous individuals **[1]**, if Anathema had begun to stock _that_ he'd have to consign her to one of the very worst circles of hell.

Luckily for Anathema, she had Standards and even for the sake of making money she had refused to stock the book.

**[1] **In truth, he hadn't smitten anyone for several centuries. And that had been Crowley. So it probably didn't count.

Aziraphale stood in the doorway, horror struck, until Crowley – who was standing in the street behind him and couldn't see – pushed him into the shop so he could get past.

The demon halted on the threshold and whistled.

'It's definitely an improvement,' Crowley said thoughtfully.

'It is _not!_' Aziraphale was nearly on the verge of a breakdown. 'Look what she's done. She's stocked _Twilight_!'

Crowley shrugged. 'Nothing wrong with that. Encouraging teenage girls everywhere to take a stupid idealistic viewpoint likely to get them killed.' He looked around. 'And she's got rid of all those tatty old things you were selling,' Crowley continued thoughtfully as he picked up a copy of _Masquerade_. 'I mean, really, angel, at least this is in one piece.'

Aziraphale eyed the book balefully. 'It might not be _50 Shades of Grey_-' both angel and demon shuddered in horror – 'but it is most certainly _not _a substitute for _my_ stock, which she had no right to – to-' Horror struck him and he fell silent. 'What has she done with my books?'

'Maybe she sold them,' Crowley suggested, not unreasonably.

'Sold them? No, no, she can't do that.'

'This is a bookstore, angel. Or at least, that's what you've always said, although come to think of it, surely you ought to be selling them for it to qualify as a shop?'

'Don't be ridiculous. Those are my personal collection!'

'Oh, really? My mistake, it must be the way that you put them on shelves in a shop that fooled me.'

'When you've quite finished,' came Anathema's cool, collected voice from the street outside. 'We'd like to come in. If that's all right by you.'

'Hmm? Oh, yes, of course,' Aziraphale said absentmindedly. 'Crowley, dear, do move out the way. You're quite blocking the entrance.'

Crowley hissed but moved anyway and Anathema and Sam (still clutching her tea) filed in. Madame Tracy had gone home, saying that she had an appointment.

Sam grimaced as she stepped closer to the radiation of the Seal, taking another swig of tea. Apparently, the stuff formed some kind of psychic block.

'Sso,' Crowley said slightly maliciously, allowing the resultant awkward silence to fill the room neatly. Aziraphale was still wringing his hands over the desecration of his bookshop.

Anathema took charge. Crowley was slightly annoyed that the awkwardness had not lasted for longer. Mortals were always amusing when knocked off balance.

'The Seal is in the back room. All your stock is in there, er, Mr Fell,' Anathema said in a businesslike tone that faltered when considering how to address Aziraphale.

Aziraphale's manners managed to overtake even his worry for his books. 'Please, call me… actually, Mr Fell is fine.'

'You can call him Zizi,' Crowley commented with a slight air of malice.

Anathema looked at him. 'I'd rather not.'

'Yes, I'd rather you didn't as well,' Aziraphale agreed with a glare at the demon.

Sam was still struggling to keep up somewhat. As the angel and the demon headed to the back room bickering amiably, she fell into step with Anathema.

'Is he really an angel?' she muttered. The slightly plump, slightly scruffy, blonde man – who looked like a particularly absent minded professor, or maybe a scholar of some kind, and carried a sort of _forcefield_ of Englishness – looked like the last thing in the world she'd imagine when someone said _angel_. Except maybe his – friend? Probably, although they certainly bickered like an old married couple – who looked like the anthropomorphic personification of Trouble. In a good way.

He did look familiar. Maybe he was a minor celebrity or something. To be honest, she wasn't really following any of the proceedings today.

'As far as I can tell – yes, he really is. He may not look it right now, but when he wants to he can look almost imposing.'

'And his… friend?'

'A demon.'

Sam stopped and drew back a little. 'A demon? As in, Dante – type – demon?'

'Technically.' Anathema shrugged and pushed the back room door open. 'He doesn't look it either and he certainly doesn't act especially demonic, but then again, Mr Fell hardly acts like an angel.'

'I'd have expected less tartan, more be – thou – not – afeared,' Sam commented. 'And what kind of demon drives a Bentley and listens to Queen?'

'A decent one,' Crowley hissed at her. Sam jumped. 'With very good hearing,' he added from where he was standing in the centre of the labyrinth of bookshelves with the angel, who was standing by a glass – fronted case.

'No, no, this won't do at all,' Aziraphale fretted. He gazed around the packed room. 'Oh dear. Nobody is in the shop, are they?'

Anathema checked. 'No. Newt's gone shopping.'

'Oh, good.' Aziraphale closed his eyes and frowned slightly. 'Excuse me a moment.'

A slight breeze came from nowhere and gently ruffled his untidy blonde curls, whispering slightly across the room. Sam glanced at the angel's face. It seemed a little… lighter, less human, as he frowned in concentration and then nodded.

The room… shifted. Sam blinked as the bookcases slid out of alignment, as though her eyes had unfocussed, and then they were gone.

The room was now, if not roomy per se, rather emptier than it had been. The tartan sofa remained where it was, battered and ancient, looking rather as though it had simply come here to die. A considerable number of bottles of wine stood in a rack that had been obscured by the cases. There was a rug, and a small table with a kettle and teapot on it. Only two bookshelves remained in the corner, one of which was the glass – fronted one containing things that were so ancient they weren't even books.

Aziraphale opened his eyes and smiled brightly. 'Much better. Tea, anyone?'

Crowley rolled his eyes. 'Was that really necessary?'

'Quite.' Aziraphale waved a hand at the kettle, which was quite suddenly full and boiling, whistling gently.

Anathema opened the door and looked into the main shop. With a sigh of despair, she allowed her head to impact on the door frame. It was exactly as it had been before she and Newt had taken it over, with dusty floorboards, wooden shelves, no semblance of a cataloguing system and books which were mostly older than she was.

Crowley shook his head and grabbed a bottle of wine from the rack, but a glare from Aziraphale caused him to put it back reluctantly.

'No drinking before 9'o'clock,' the angel lectured.

Crowley snorted. 'That's rich. Do you not remember that time when you managed to drink from six in the morning to midnight without stopping?'

Aziraphale flushed. 'That was in Gaul. It was part of the culture.'

'No, it was last week,' the demon rejoined. He returned the bottle none the less and miracled himself an expresso.

'We must set a good example,' the angel said vaguely as he motioned towards Sam. 'You know what young people are like these days.'

'I do. You don't.' Crowley said as he sat on the sofa like he owned it.

'If we could focus on the impeding destruction of reality,' Sam said acerbically, not likeing the implications. It was out before she could stop herself and she flushed slightly. Being rude to an angel and a demon, even this pair, was probably not a good idea.

'She's got a point. Well, angel?'

Aziraphale had made himself a cup of tea and was drinking it thoughtfully. 'Hmm. Well, I suppose we could start by taking a look at the Seals.' He gave Sam a kind look. 'If you want to leave, I would quite understand, young, er, lady. Infernal power can be… overwhelming for humans.'

Sam crossed her arms. 'I'm going nowhere. Anyway, I have tea.'

'Yes, yes. Acts as a form of psychic inhibitor, repressing the sixth sense.'

'Is that why you never noticed you had it?' Crowley said with an innocent tone.

Aziraphale had the grace to look sheepish. 'I would remind you, dear boy, that you didn't notice it either.'

'That's because alcohol is an inhibitor too,' Anathema said matter of factly. 'And judging by the amount of wine over there…'

Crowley gave her his best cool, dark, serpentine glare. Anathema stared right back at him. Crowley allowed his contact lenses to vaporise, revealing his golden, slitted eyes, and then hissed slightly.

Anathema was slightly unnerved but met his reptilian stare.

Aziraphale sighed and shook his head. 'When you have quite finished, the world is ending.'

'When is it not?' Crowley muttered, but broke the gaze reluctantly and turned to the bookshelves.

Aziraphale was standing by the climate controlled cabinet, one hand on the lock, eyes focussed on the glass. He was concentrating on something.

With a gentle bleep, the light turned green. Aziraphale stood back.

'Clear some space on the table, would you?'

Anathema began to shift piles of paperwork methodically. Crowley rolled his eyes and swept it all onto the floor with a swipe of his arm, although at a glare from the angel he made a face and miracled it onto the other desk, all in perfect order.

Aziraphale pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and gingerly opened the door, retrieving the scroll and its stand. He carried it to the table and set it down gently, the door swinging shut behind him.

They all clustered closely around him, trying to view the scroll. Well, Sam and Anathema did. Crowley just slouched in the corner trying to look disinterested.

'So,' Aziraphale said in a more collected tone than he had used before. He looked a little more angelic now – as if something was shining through from underneath the plump-English-intelligent disguise. 'This is – which seal, Crowley?'

Crowley sauntered forwards. 'The _fu_ seal.'

'Representing knowledge.' Aziraphale nodded. 'And the other one, Miss Device?'

Anathema produced the small, wooden puzzle box from her bag and placed it on the table. Sam flinched and took a swig of her tea.

'And this is which?'

'The _sui_ seal. That's water – adaptability.' Crowley picked up the box, turning it over in his hands. 'I wondered where it had gone.'

'That was yours?' Sam blurted.

Crowley spared her a glance. 'Correct. It happens to be my property, morally speaking.'

'I don't think you are in a position to be lecturing on morals,' Aziraphale said gently. 'You did, after all, lose it in a drunken game of something halfway between dice and poker.'

Crowley scowled. 'Not the point. And I told you I'd lost it to that apothecary.'

'Yes, but you didn't tell me that he was burnt for witchcraft and his property confiscated by the Witchfinder Army.

Sam blinked, and the visions she'd seen earlier swam into her mind. With them came another stab of pain and she hastily took another swig of tea. She breathed deeply, and got herself under control. The images reappeared – not visions, this time, but memories.

Snake eyes. Well, that made sense now, if the demon – Crowley – owned the box thing. His eyes were golden and slitted and held an animal cunning not at home in the rest of his face. Falling dice. That was the game. Goblet of red. Wine, maybe? Flames. Screaming. Sam shuddered. That was obvious. Occasionally a face had appeared- an old man in what looked like they could have been robes, and now she thought about it, vaguely Japanese as well; he was always dim and faded, ghostly, like an old picture, which would make sense, if he were the original owner. Then there was the other man, wearing… medieval clothes? Not modern, certainly. Whenever he appeared the flames always came back. That was the unfortunate apothecary. And the strongest face, a youngish man with dark, curly hair and alabaster skin and stupid cheekbones, and icey blue eyes. Yes, that was him – Crowley.

His face still looked familiar, and with the blue eyes – why they were blue now, she had no idea, but they were and now she recognized him – she knew who he was. His face had been plastered across newspapers and TV for months.

Sam opened her eyes and gaped.

'Sam? Are you OK?' Anathema looked at her in concern. 'You can leave, you know - '

Sam ignored her, turning to Crowley. 'You! I – I know who you are.'

Crowley gave her his best cower-mere-mortals Look. 'We were introduced about an hour ago.'

'I recognise you,' Sam continued excitedly. 'You're Sherlock Holmes!'

Crowley gave her a disdainful look. Aziraphale looked like he was trying not to grin.

'I must remember to smite those newspaper reporters next time,' Crowley muttered offhandedly.

Sam frowned. 'I saw you. In the visions.'

'Perfectly understandable,' Aziraphale commented. 'If you were picking up on the aura of the Seal, it would be strongly imprinted with the essence of the person who'd owned it for centuries.'

'The man who you lost the Seal to. Did he have…' Sam concentrated. She allowed a little of the psychic energy to slip past her guard. 'Longish dark brown hair, brown eyes, a slight scar on his right forearm? Wore a… I think a tunic? Tabard?'

Crowley looked at her with slightly less disdainful disinterest. 'Yes.'

'Then he's the other man I saw,' Sam nodded. She shuddered and took another sip of tea. 'The one who… who burned.'

'What else did you see?' Anathema asked, eyes bright with curiosity.

Sam shrugged. 'Dice. A cup of wine. Fire. His eyes,' indicating Crowley, 'a lot, actually. An old man, wearing a Japanese robe thingy. Bearded, wise looking, but I couldn't tell much. It was an old picture.'

'Sounds like Seimei,' Crowley said offhandedly. 'He made it, of course, but he didn't have it for more than, oh, twenty years? And it was a long time ago.'

The demon was holding the puzzle box, looking at it inquisitively.

'Well, that's all very well,' Anathema said practically, 'but what, exactly, are you going to do about saving the world? Again?'

Aziraphale coughed, returning attention to the scroll. He unrolled it with the utmost care and delicacy, the old material crackling as it was manipulated. It might well have fallen apart, were it not for the odd judicious miracle on the angel's part.

'What does it say?' Sam asked, craning her head to look.

'Nothing,' Aziraphale replied. 'It's a diagram. A Seal.'

He could feel it, crackling with power under his hands. It was barely contained, itching to be released, and it was hellish and black with fury. It was only just constrained by the power of the Binding Seimei had placed upon it all those years ago.

It made him feel ill just _looking_ at something so infused with the essence of Hell, and he'd been practically – and lately, literally – living with a demon for two millennia.

'Well, how do you destroy it?' Sam asked.

Aziraphale gave her a scandalised look. 'My dear girl – this is one of the oldest examples of Japanese scrollwork ever recovered. It is priceless and irreplaceable. I can't allow it to be damaged!'

'It's also a Key to Hell and could potentially destroy the whole world, angel,' Crowley interrupted. 'Better it than Earth.'

Aziraphale looked ready to dispute this but Anathema, ever grounded and sensible, pulled their minds back to the matter at hand.

'We have two Seals, and if you don't want to use this one for now, we can always use the other one. Although it will have to be neutralized eventually.'

Crowley shrugged and held out the box. 'This one is harmless until the lid has been arranged to form the Seal. Then it can be broken.'

Sam took it, frowning. 'How do you solve it?'

The demon shrugged. 'Not a clue.'

'How do you destroy the Seal?'

'Not a clue.'

At this moment, the planet Earth as a collective being might well be forgiven for thinking: With friends like these, who needs enemies?


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Short chapter, I know. It's taken me a while to get back on with this, and then I got stuck again.**

**I'm also not quite happy with the way that this picks up where the beginning of last chapter left off, then jumps back to after the end of last chapter. It seems a bit... confusing. But I'm not sure how else to do it. Thoughts?**

* * *

**Chapter X**

_One week after the Seal broke_

The coven reacted with murmurs of suspicion. Well, there weren't really enough of them to be murmurs. Unaneledus stepped forwards.

'Who is this newcomer, sister Horologia?'

'She was once known as Samantha,' Horologia declaimed. Gadre'el – Sam – raised her chin in what she hoped was a haughty fashion.

'Can she speak not for her own sake?' Unaneledus taunted. It was a little Shakespearean, but the sentiment carried and Gadre'el gritted her teeth. No, it was no use – she couldn't stop thinking of herself as Sam. She gave what she thought was a smirk, although it was more of an odd smile.

'I can indeed, brother Unaneledus. Do you doubt me? I have given you no cause for such resentment.'

Entomologia shrugged and eyed the newcomer pleasantly. 'Hiya, Sam.' A disapproving glare from Horologia followed and she coughed, then corrected herself. 'I mean, uh. Greetings, sister. By foulest night and blackest dark I greet thee, by ev'lest moon and heartless stars I welcome ye.' She'd clearly done some homework, and that had probably been practiced, Horologia saw approvingly.

Macrobiotus offered a clumsy bow. 'And I extend my greetings, Gabriel-'

'Gad'reel,' Sam corrected.

He stumbled. 'Um, sorry?'

'Gadr'eel, not Gabriel. Lots of people make that mistake,' she said as coldly as she could.

'Oh, er. Right. Sorry, Gad'reel. Er. Is there an apostrophe in that?'

'Yes,' Sam said icily.

'Er. Where?'

'Wherever seems best,' Sam improvised. 'Is the spelling of my name important?'

'No, er. No. I just… um… Greetings, Ga'dreel.'

Sam nodded back and turned her attention to Prebenda and Diacritic, who had been silent thus far.

'Greetings, Prebenda, Diacritic,' she said formally. They nodded in return.

'Now,' Horologia said loudly, drawing all attention back to her. 'We must –'

'Now,' Unaneledus said, overriding her; she gaped in shock and fury but was ignored; 'we must test our new sister.'

Sam schooled her face to stay calm. 'Test?'

'After all, we do not know the extent of your abilities,' he sneered. It was obvious from his face that he thought he did.

Sam took a breath. _OK. We practiced this. You know what to do._

'You doubt me,' she said in as questioning and yet threatening a tone as she could manage. Unaneledus made no reply but gave her a mocking look. 'You doubt _me?' _

She threw out a hand. White fire coursed around her palm, making the cave light. The eldritch phosphor pulsed about her, forming a corona, and gathering into a ball at the palm of her hand.

'Elf-fire,' gasped Entomologia, eyes wide. 'How can she – I mean – I thought she was –'

Sam threw her a glance. 'I _learned_, while I was away. And now I am _strong_.' She hoped she wasn't overdoing this.

Unaneledus drew himself upright and the darkness in the cave seemed to coalesce around him, drawing up and over his head and fanning out like wings of night. 'Your faith is in the light,' he taunted. 'I am of the dark. And the dark shall always rise.'

Sam took a breath and twisted her hand. The white fire gathered in her palm and brightened almost imperceptibly. 'You wish to challenge me?'

He spat at her. 'I challenge you. Oh, I challenge you, you upstart child, you mewling schlemiel, puppet of light.'

Sam drew back a hand, and –

The lights went out. The elf-fire had been so bright that nobody could see in the sudden blackness, and in the dark of the cave Unaneledus felt with growing fear a _presence _in front of him. Sam was moving towards him, silently.

'You say that I put my faith in the light,' she whispered in his ear. He jumped a mile as he felt her hand upon his shoulder. 'But night shall fall, and dark shall rise. And now you are the mewling schlemiel, you the puny puppet.'

Light burst forth like morning and Sam looked around from where she stood, seeing Horologia standing with one arm outstretched and a ball of light hanging above her hand. Her face was pale.

Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief. She wasn't sure how much longer she could have kept it up for. She was already reduced to quoting TV shows to fulfil this silly mode of speech.

'And now,' Horologia said with perfect composure – or a half-decent imitation – 'We must plan.'

Sam settled in to listen, taking mental notes.

* * *

The coven was actually Anathema's idea. Sam was unenthusiastic but when you have a witch, an angel and a demon telling you to do something, it becomes difficult to refuse.

'They won't trust you two,' Anathema said to Aziraphale and Crowley by way of reasoning. 'No offence, but you reek of supernatural energy. I mean, the non-human kind. Even their kind of half-baked magic will be enough for them to notice. And you're a lot older than them.'

Crowley sniffed. 'We could disguise ourselves.'

'What, and look like a human?' Anathema scoffed. 'A Satanist, at that?'

Both the angel and the demon pulled identical disgusted faces and fell silent.

'So it'll have to be you, Sam,' Anathema continued unabated. 'And anyway, they know you. They can believe it.'

Sam shook her head. 'They know I'm not… well, like them. I'm not even a witch.'

'You're psychic, that's good enough. And anyway, I have a plan,' Anathema said mysteriously. 'But you're going to need a shopping trip.'

Sam looked wary. 'A shopping trip.'

'Yes. You look far too normal.'

Three hours later, and Sam was exhausted. She was weighted down with what seemed like hundreds of bags, some from charity shops and some from the kind of shop with carefully misspelled signs and staff who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Hammer movie.

Anathema seemed to know what she was doing, alright, and had dragged a barely protesting Sam through fitting room after fitting room, picking out dresses and coats which were, uniformly, black and gothic, and shoes Sam protested she couldn't possibly walk in ("That's alright, nobody can walk in those shoes. The trick is to stagger with style"), not to mention huge bottles of heavy-duty eyeliner (it would have been cheaper just to buy a industrial-sized tin of black paint, Sam thought apprehensively) and lipstick in a variety of unnatural shades. And enough jewellery to make the owner plausibly stabproof.

At last, they exited the final shop (small, dingy, and a sign proclaiming that this was "The Ravyn") with Sam clutching yet another bag. Anathema carried a small hatbox.

'Can we go now?' Sam groused. 'I have to get back before ten and it's a two-hour drive.'

Anathema waved a hand. 'We're done. Unless you want piercings.'

'_No._'

'Tattoos?'

'No way.'

'Fine. You'll just have to use the transfers.'

Sam shifted one of the huge bags. It was black, with rhinestones in the shape of a skull. 'How do you know where to get this stuff?'

The older woman flushed. 'I… went through a phase. When I was your age.'

'So now you feel the need to inflict it on me.'

'Let's get a cab,' Anathema said quickly, flagging one down as she did so. 'Where did you park your car?'

Sam gave the address and the taxi headed off as they settled back into the seat


End file.
